Cherry Grove
by Sybilia
Summary: Jane and Maura vacation in the gayest place on Earth: Fire Island, NY. Sequel to Seasick.
1. Chapter 1

"Jane, did you just urinate?" Maura stalked from the bathroom gloriously naked, holding her Sonic toothbrush.

"Um, yeah."

Although the sight of her girlfriend au naturel was an everyday occurrence, Jane was still left breathless and slack jawed by the curvy form, backlight by the bright light spilling from the bathroom.

"Jane!"

Dark eyes reluctantly moved from their contemplation of a peerless ivory breast to meet the concerned gaze a foot above it.

"Yeah, I peed, but I flushed. I swear it. You have me trained good, babe."

"_Well_. I have you trained _well_. But that's not the point. There's a peculiar odor around the toilet. I distinctly smell a ketonic monosaccharide with perhaps a hint of cassia."

"Oh…kay."

"That's not good, Jane."

"Sorry."

"It's not your fault. A strong smell of fructose in one's urine could point to myriad health disorders. While I don't believe it is possible that you have branched-chain ketoaciduria, more commonly known as maple syrup urine disease, you could be pre-diabetic. That does run in your family."

Jane snorted. "I don't have brunching kettle-whosis. I sprayed some air freshener in there. You'll find it under the sink. I think the scent is called 'Cinnabon Roll.'"

Maura narrowed her eyes, observing her lover for any sign of prevarication before returning to the bathroom. Jane heard the telltale squeak of the cabinet opening and the double pump of aerosol hitting the air. A moment later Maura reentered the bedroom.

"Well?"

"It's actually called 'Cinnamon Sugar Roll.'"

"And?"

"It matches the scent profile I detected in the vicinity of the toilet."

Jane reached out and placed her hands on Maura's hips, pulling her closer until she could rest her cool cheek against a warm belly.

"So I'll live to fight another day? I'm not suffering from some icky piss disease?"

"Apparently not."

"That's good." Jane kissed her way up Maura's abdomen to the underside of one heavy breast. "I think I'll have to toss that air freshener and buy one that smells like roses."

"Urine that smells of roses could be a sign of turpentine poisoning."

"Really?"

"In fact…" Maura drew back and raised her arm, pointer finger aloft. "In ancient Rome, patrician ladies would drink turpentine to scent their urine for the pleasure of their lovers."

"That's pretty freaky. I bet some of them died."

"I'm certain they did."

Jane flopped back on the mattress, leaning on her elbows. Some of Maura's lectures were more interesting than others and this was shaping up to be one of them.

"What else did they do, my noble ancestors?"

"Well…" Maura searched through the library of her giant brain for a juicy tidbit of classical esoterica. "The Romans were known to make deadly creatures called Veneficiae."

"Mmm?"

"Rome was a turbulent cesspit of intrigue…"

"Like the Boston PD." Jane interrupted.

"Worse."

"The noble families fought for influence ruthlessly; murder was commonplace. It was a practice to feed small doses of poison to one's slaves from infancy on until they developed a tolerance to it. The doses could then be increased until by adulthood, small amounts of poison were secreted in the body fluids of the slaves; in saliva, sweat, semen, and vaginal secretions."

Maura paused to look at her girlfriend, who often zoned out during one of her intellectual tangents, but Jane's eyes were riveted to her, alert and interested.

"Go on, Maur."

The doctor licked her lips and continued. "The nobleman might then make a gift of this slave to an enemy in the hopes that he would take him or her to his bed and the exchange of fluids during coitus would slowly poison the man."

"Wow. Could that actually work?"

Maura waggled her hand. "Probably not. The small amount of poison actually excreted through sweat or by the prostate, vestibular, periurethral and paraurethral glands would hardly be enough to cause illness and death, but it's a wonderful story."

"Yeah, it is. When I retire, I'm gonna write detective novels and I'll use that as the mode of murder in one of them. You'll have to remind me, babe, in about fifteen years."

Maura beamed at the thought of them, still very much in love, a decade and a half in the future. "Will you base your protagonist on yourself?"

"Of course. My novels will feature badass homicide detective Mane Mizzoli and her sidekick Dr. Nora Niles."

"Sidekick?"

"Don't worry. Nora will be smoking hot and brilliant with enormous breasts."

Maura swatted at her in mock anger. "Go load my suitcases in the car. I'm going to take a shower."

"I'm on it, Dr. Niles."

The trunk was already crammed full with the eclectic hodgepodge of a working vacation; snorkeling equipment and a medical bag, a box of purple latex gloves peeping out from among the dozen boxes of high end shoes, a stereo compound microscope enveloped in bubble wrap resting next to a Donna Karan knapsack full of sex toys and board games. Jane sighed and slammed the trunk closed.

"How are you going to get all of this stuff onto Fire Island?"

"The ferry. I may have to make a second trip to the car."

"You may have to make a twenty-second trip to the car. Are you sure you don't want to leave a few bags for me to bring? You couldn't possible need five suitcases full of clothes for two days."

"I would have to repack everything, Jane. The items in my luggage are not sorted by outfit. It would take all day."

Jane sighed. "How are you going manage once you're on the island? You can't just call a taxi to take you to the house."

Maura grinned. "They have the cutest little red wagons on Cherry Grove. I read online that residents use them to go grocery shopping."

"Little red wagon?" Jane raised an eyebrow. "This stuff barely fits in your little blue Toyota." She opened the trunk again and shuffled aside a canvas tote full of beach towels and a box cryptically labeled 'chemical and pharmaceutical agents, various.'" She shook her head and closed the trunk again.

"I think I saw a pair of skis in there, Maura. What the hell are you going to do with skis in August?" She grunted under the weight of the largest in a set of five matching Louis Vuitton bags as she jammed it into the cramped backseat of Maura's Prius.

"Water skis, love. Fire Island is…"

"Famous for water skiing?"

"No, I don't think so." Maura bit her lip thoughtfully. "I was going to say that it is an island and therefore surrounded by water, but that seemed obvious. I just thought we might like to enjoy some of the activities that an island affords; water skiing and snorkeling. I would especially like to explore the wreck of the Glückauf. And of course there is the added benefit of vacationing in a gay town."

"I still don't get why we have to travel all the way to New York to be gay. We can be gay as geese right here in Massachusetts."

"Anser anserinae?"

"What?" Jane swiped at a sweaty tendril of hair swinging in front of her eyes.

"Geese, Jane, although the type we are most likely to come across in Boston or in New York are actually Brantae Canadensis. I'm not an ornithologist, but I'm fairly certain that geese are not among the waterfowl known to form homosexual pair bonds. Sphenisciformes, penguins of all species, however…" Maura raised her lecture finger, but was cut off midsentence by a pair of warm lips pressing urgently against her own.

Jane released her lips, but the pair remained entwined, leaning against the rear bumper of the small car, foreheads pressed together.

"I'll be your rainbow-spangled love penguin any day, babe."

"Jane, you're much too tall to be a penguin. You're more of an ostrich or an emu. Besides, we're not traveling to New York to be gay. I'm going to be the town doctor in Cherry Grove, which happens to be a gay town." Maura added another bag to the pile on the curb.

"Provincetown is gay and it's only a two-hour ride."

"Yes, but Provincetown doesn't need a town doctor. I need to put in my hours treating the living to keep up my license. You've become very used to me writing you a script for your eczema or Azithromycin when you have strep throat. You wouldn't want to waste a day waiting to see a dermatologist and otolaryngologist would you?"

Jane shrugged. "Maybe. I'm sure another doctor wouldn't be as stingy with antibiotics as you are."

Maura pursed her lips in displeasure. "Antibiotic abuse is rampant in our society…"

"Sure it is, Maur. Everyday I'm busting a dirtbag pushing Zpak and Penicillin in Roxbury."

"That's not what I meant. You don't need an antibiotic every time you have a sniffle. Overuse of antibiotics has led to a worldwide epidemic of drug-resistant pathogens, MRSA infections and increased death rates from sepsis and other illnesses that have been previously contained like tuberculosis, pertussis and diphtheria. Just yesterday I read an article in the J_ournal of Infections, Viruses, Viroids, Prions, Microorganisms, Bacteria, Nematodes, Arthropods, Fungi and Macroparasites _about a newly identified enzyme conveying bacterial resistance to a broad range of beta-lactam antibacterials…"

Jane's eyes had glassed over midway through her girlfriend's discourse. Instead of listening she concentrated on the movement of Maura's lips and the way her breasts pushed against the gossamer material of her blouse. She swallowed audibly. "This is the first time we'll be sleeping apart in six months."

Maura's face softened. "I know, love, but it's only for two nights. I…I'm nervous. I want to get there early and meet with Dr. Argentina before she leaves for her vacation, get up to date on her regular patients and their needs, familiarize myself with her examining room and instruments; an internist's office is very different from a morgue."

"Right…no dead people fridge. Where will you store your lunch?"

Maura elbowed her gently in the ribs. "I'll have to use the urine sample fridge."

"Ewww. I don't know which is worse, but I do think you're developing a sense of humor, Dr. Isles. I must be rubbing off on you while I'm rubbing off on you."

Maura smiled at the double entendre and leaned in for another soft kiss. "I'll be waiting for you on the ferry dock on Monday."

"Wear something sexy."

"Scrubs and Crocs?"

"Sure, as long as you're braless and wearing crotchless panties underneath." Jane whispered into her hair.

"You sure you'll be okay?"

"I'll be fine, babe. I'm going to lie on the couch in my underpants eating Doritos dipped in Nutella and watching enough Red Sox baseball to carry me through two weeks of the Yankees."

Maura wrinkled her nose and then smiled. Jane deserved a weekend of baseball and junk food. She'd been happily eating kale and salmon for months, well maybe not happily, but she ate it nonetheless. She'd attended the opera, the ballet, driven to New York and back on her one day off the previous month so Maura could see the Metropolitan Museum's new exhibit of Tudor-era codpieces and even turned down Sox tickets behind home plate to cheer on Susie Chang, who was competing in a crossword puzzle championship. Yes, Jane deserved to spend her weekend however she saw fit.

Maura stood on her toes and planted one quick kiss on a dimpled chin then slipped behind the wheel and turned her key in the ignition. She poked her head out of the window and shouted above the engine noise. "Skype me, Jane. We can have virtual intercourse via simultaneous masturbation."

Jane whipped her head around, the flush staining her cheeks equal parts embarrassment and desire, but there was no one on the street. She met the eyes of the woman she loved and smiled. "Will do, Maur. Drive carefully."

Maura blew her a kiss and pulled out of the driveway. She stopped the car and once again leaned out of the window, her brows furrowed in confusion. "Jane? Must one purchase crotchless panties or would excising the crotch panel with a surgical scalpel be sufficient?"

* * *

"Ma, I'm trying to relax. Can you go do that someplace else?"

"Do what? I'm fluffing the pillows. Maura's out of the house one day and you've turned this into a pigsty."

"Yeah, 'cause everyone knows that pigs love flat pillows."

"Flat pillows, cheese doodles on the floor, ice cream dripping all over the counter, your boots kicked off in the hall where I nearly tripped over them and broke my neck. How would you feel if I broke my neck, Janie?"

"Bad."

"That's right, so you'd better clean this place up."

"Bad because you'd move right in here for months to recover." Jane muttered to herself.

"I heard that, Jane Clementine."

Jane grunted in reply and shifted her long body on the sofa, flattening the pillows Angela had just fluffed. She wondered for the thousandth time how she had managed to live with her mother well into her thirties without killing the woman or at least telling her off. Their relationship had always been like this; Angela would pick at her and Jane would withdraw, mumbling inaudible acquiescences and muffled curses until her mother gave up and left her alone. She turned up the volume on the television, hoping her mother would take the hint and shuffle off next door to the guest house for the balance of the evening.

Angela sighed loudly and padded into the kitchen. She returned in a moment holding an open bottle of Sam Adams Summer Ale, a peace offering.

"Ma! I'm on call all weekend. I can't drink."

The older Rizzoli sighed again and took a deep swig from the chilled bottle, grimacing as the liquid hit her tongue. "I don't know how you drink this slop."

She placed the bottle on an empty bag of Fritos resting on the coffee table and perched on the edge of the sofa, pulling Jane's feet onto her lap. "What are we watching?"

"True Blood."

"Maybe there's a nice movie on Lifetime." Angela reached for the remote, but Jane was quicker, swiping it up in one fast motion and holding it over her head.

"I'd rather watch a documentary about the intestinal flora of aardvarks than some lame-ass Lifetime movie."

She had in fact watched just such a documentary the week before with Maura, or at least she had started watching it. Fifteen minutes in and she was asleep, her head nestled in the doctor's soft lap, lulled by the scent of lavender and vanilla fabric softener wafting off of Maura's yoga pants and the gentle pull of her girlfriend's fingers through her snarled tresses.

Thoughts of Maura's fingers brought to mind her own hand and she began worrying at the platinum promise ring on her finger, spinning it lazily so the flush-set diamonds caught the bluish light coming off of the television screen.

Angela caught the gesture. "You should buy a ring for Maura."

"Yeah, one of these days." Jane reached for the beer and put it back. She dug into the sofa cushions and came up with a half empty bottle of water. She frowned and took a sip.

"I could go shopping with you. You have to go to New York anyway. We could leave extra early and take a detour to the diamond district. Mrs. Katz's nephew's in-laws have a business on West 47th Street. She gave me their card, said they'd give us a good deal."

"Us?"

"Sure. Then we could celebrate with a nice brunch at some fancy place with mimosas in real crystal glasses and you could drop me at Penn Station before you go to the ferry, or maybe I could spend a few days with Carla Tallucci's sister Gina in Queens."

Jane rolled her eyes. "Now we're going to Queens too."

"You have to drive through Queens to get to your ferry. I looked it up on the google."

"I'm not buying Maura a diamond in New York."

"Fine." Angela pouted in silence for a long enough that Jane felt safe hitting play on the remote. The still image on the television burst to life with a loud roar, blood and falling bodies filled the screen. Jo Friday stirred from her sleep and raised her shaggy beige head above Jane's hip, her alert eyes scanned the room once before closing. There was nothing worthy of her interest; the Fritos bag was empty.

Angela lifted the remote and muted the television.

"Ma! I'm watching that."

"I have another idea."

"What?"

She reached into her pocket and withdrew an embroidered handkerchief. "You could give Maura my ring."

Jane switched the set off and sat up, scooting in close to her mother. "Is that really…?"

"Yeah. Your father gave me this on our three-month dating anniversary. He was going into the Navy and he wanted to make sure I'd be waiting for him when he got out. Turns out he left me with more than just the ring. We had to get married during his first shore leave, and we told everyone you were born premature…at nine and a half pounds." Angela chuckled at the memory.

The diamond was small, barely more than a chip, and dull, but Jane remembered it resting proudly on her mother's hand throughout her childhood.

"I know it's not much and Maura deserves something a whole lot better, but maybe you could give this to her as a placeholder until you find something you both like."

Jane rested her head on her mother's shoulder as she turned the ring over and over in her hands. Finally she slipped it on her right ring finger where it fit snuggly.

"I can barely get it on my pinkie these days." Angela laughed. "Middle aged spread."

"It wouldn't fit Maura either. Her hands are actually bigger than mine…not longer, but…meatier."

"You have such elegant fingers, Janie. You should have played the violin or the cello."

Jane snorted. "Yeah, I can see it now, 'Yo-Yo Rizzoli plays Carnegie Hall.'"

"You coulda done anything if you put your mind to it. You're my smart, beautiful girl." Angela rested her lips against her daughter's temple. "I love you and I love Maura. The ring is yours, hers, if you want it."

"Thank you, Ma. I actually already have a ring."

"I knew it!" Angela jumped from the couch. "Lemme see."

Jane jogged up the stairs to the large bedroom she shared with Maura and returned bearing a blue velvet box.

Angela opened it and gasped. "Oh, baby, this is…it's gorgeous. Is it real?"

"Is it real!" Jane snatched the box away from her mother. "Do you think I would buy Maura a piece of shit from QVC?"

"Of course not, but this looks like a lot more than two months' salary. Did you hit the lottery and not tell me about it?"

Jane bristled then relaxed. Angela was just being Angela.

"I'm not a pauper, Ma. I have some savings and I just sold my condo."

"Yeah, for less then you paid for it."

"Frankie drives a hard bargain, but it's not like I have a lavish lifestyle to support."

"True. You certainly don't spend your money on clothes. Gimme that ring again. I didn't even get a chance to look at it before you grabbed it away from me."

Angela slipped the ring on her own finger and walked into the kitchen to admire it under the fluorescent lights. "It's…big, Janie, and really, really beautiful. What do you call this style?"

"Art deco. It's made by Tiffany, but it's vintage…from the 1920s. I wanted to get something that had a history. Maura loves history."

Jane joined her, hands thrust deep into her pockets. Angela looked up at her tall daughter who suddenly looked very young and uncertain.

"Think she'll like it, Ma?"

"She'll love it. It's classy and timeless, just like Maura, but mostly she'll love it because she loves you."

"Thanks, Ma." Jane kissed the part of her mother's hair.

"You gonna give it to her for her birthday?"

"Nah, I don't know what I'm going to do yet, but I want it to be natural, casual, like when she gave me my ring…she just slipped it on my finger one night while she was massaging my hands. I'll think of something."

"Maybe you could tie it to Jo Friday's collar and let her discover it."

"That's lame, Ma."

"I think it's cute. You should involve Jo."

Jane snorted. "Yeah, maybe I'll drop it in her poop and say, 'Hey, Maur, look what Jo crapped out.'"

Angela swatted her daughter with a nearby dishtowel. "I'm sure you'll think of something perfect, baby, and it won't involve dog shit."

Hearing her name, the little dog jumped from the sofa and trotted into the kitchen, her tiny nails clicking crisply on the tiled floor.

"You have to make a cocky doody, Josephine?" Angela smiled at the dog and she wagged her tail in answer. "You want Nona to take you for a walk?"

"I'll take her, Ma. It's late."

"No. I'm gonna miss her for the two weeks you're gone. She's the closest thing I have to a grandchild from you."

Jane groaned. "I was waiting for that."

"What? It's true. Put that ring on Maura's finger already so I can start planning your wedding. I've been dreaming of your wedding day since Massachusetts passed the gay marriage act in 2005."

Jane gaped at her mother. "I wasn't out in 2005."

"But I knew. I've known since you were seven and you asked for shoulder pads and a football helmet for your Holy Communion. Since that day I waited for the right girl to come along and I knew as soon as I met Maura…"

Jane pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes. She inhaled, counted to ten and released her breath through clenched teeth. Angela had taken Jo's leash from the hook next to the door and stuffed a plastic grocery bag into her pocket.

"Maura wants us to use the biodegradable poop-bags. They're in the drawer."

"She trained you good, Janie. Marry her already."

"It's only been six months, Ma."

"Bullshit. The two of you have been in love since the day you met. Promise me you'll give her the ring this week and call me as soon as you do."

"I promise."

Angela clapped her hands. "Wedding plans. I have so many ideas."

Jane pushed her mother and Jo out the door. "If you're not back in ten minutes, I'm coming to look for you with my Glock."

"My big, brave girl." Angela managed to land one more kiss on her daughter's cheek before the door closed in her face.

* * *

Maura dropped into the flamingo-colored Adirondack chair on the front porch of Belly Acres, the bungalow on Doctor's Walk that had housed the town's physician since it was built for that purpose in 1955. She took a long sip from a snifter of Grand Marnier, enjoying the sweet burn of the cognac on her tongue and then the back of her throat as she swallowed. She opened the Macbook resting on her knees and noted the absence of a green checkmark next to Jane's scowling profile photo. Her girlfriend was offline. She closed the laptop and sighed.

The magnitude of her responsibility weighed heavily on her. Dr. Argentina was thrilled that she had arrived two days early. She was already packed and eager to return to the mainland. She gushed about a trip to St. Lucia and having the weekend free to visit with friends before her flight. With only a cursory tour of the office and assurances that "nothing big ever happens here; a jellyfish sting or a sunburn," she was out the door and on the next ferry before Maura had even unpacked a single vial of cobra antivenom or her frostbite detection kit.

Maura had hoped to watch Andrea Argentina in action; to observe not only her technique, but her demeanor with patients. She would have liked two full days working alongside the internist before taking the reins herself. She thought back to her morning exchange with Jane and her overzealous diagnosis of scented air freshener as a chronic metabolic disease. This was a hazard of her profession; as a forensic pathologist, she looked for causes of death.

She took another small sip of her cognac, rolling it around her tongue. The living were much more troublesome. How much doctoring was called for in an average office visit? If someone came in with a broken arm, should she also check for melanoma and heart disease? Was she obligated to inform a patient that according to the PDR height/weight standards, they were technically obese, or was that impolite and unnecessary for a visit stemming from a routine head cold? What would Jane do? She imagined her dark detective rolling those beautiful chocolate eyes. _"Gee, Dr. Isles, I had no idea. Thank you for noticing. Fat people know they're fat, Maur. Let it go." _She smiled at the thought of Jane; it would be easier when she was here. She had no medical training, of course, but she had an excellent bedside manner.

Thinking of Jane and bed made her blush. She finished off her drink, poking her tongue into the glass to secure the last stubborn drop and opened her Macbook. Jane was still offline. Her thoughts quickly turned back to her profession.

She closed her eyes and imagined a typical day in her new office. A woman comes in with… an insect bite. What if it was a brown recluse spider? A mosquito carrying West Nile virus? A tick bearing Lyme disease? Even with all the equipment she had brought with her, she was not prepared to perform complex blood tests. She placed two fingers against her carotid artery; her pulse was racing. She should never have agreed to this placement. She should have continued volunteering at the women's shelter once a month writing scrips for birth control pills and doling out flu shots in the fall.

Panicked, she closed the laptop and pulled out her iphone. Scrolling quickly through her contact list she touched a name.

"Faye? It's Maura Isles. How would you like to lend a hand on Fire Island?"

The older physician chuckled. "You can have both my hands, Maura, Kaye's too, but what exactly will we be doing?"


	2. Chapter 2

Angela jogged toward the big red Jeep Cherokee idling in Maura's driveway, waving a large paper sack. "Janie, I packed you some sandwiches for your trip. Peanut butter and fancy jelly made by those monks in Ohio. Maura bought me a case of it and I don't think I'll ever use it all even if I live to be 100. You have boysenberry and blueberry and damson plum. I tried to stick to the ones that looked like grape."

"No fluff?"

"Somebody finished it all and put the empty jar back in the closet. If that person was honest about her piggery, I would have replaced it when I went shopping."

"Wasn't me." Jane muttered, but she couldn't meet her mother's eyes.

"Yeah, I heard that before when somebody took all the condoms out of your father's sock drawer and blew them up like balloons."

"I was five, Ma! How would I have known they weren't balloons?"

"You were old enough not to snoop."

"Ugh, thirty-five years later and you're still bringing up the 'Trojan incident.'" Jane dropped her raspy alto into the baritone range for dramatic effect.

"It was very upsetting to your nonna. She thought Frank and I were using the rhythm method."

"I doubt nonna knew the difference between a rubber and a balloon. Gimme the sandwiches, I gotta go."

"You have to pay for them with a hug and a kiss."

Jane rolled her eyes, but placed a quick peck on her mother's cheek and allowed herself to be squeezed tightly for a full three seconds before squirming out of Angela's arms.

"You don't wriggle and make faces when Maura hugs and kisses you."

"That's…different."

"I know, baby, the sexual attraction between the two of you crackles in the air like an electric storm. It's palpable."

"Eww. Ma!" Jane whistled for Jo Friday and the little dog scampered around the hedges and made a beeline for the truck. "Ready, girl? Wanna go to the beach? Wanna see Maura?"

"I bet you want to see Maura. You miss the orgasms she gives you." Angela waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

"Ma!" Jane picked up the dog and tossed her into the back seat, desperate to flee her mother and whatever bizarre notion she had that this was an appropriate topic of conversation to have with her grown lesbian daughter.

"What, Janie? I'm hip to it all. I'm glad that you have a partner that satisfies all of your needs, emotional and physical. Marry her already; she's perfect."

Jane leaped into the driver's seat and slammed the door, her face as red as the candy apple paint on the Jeep.

Angela leaned into the open window. "I don't know why you're such a prude, Janie. You didn't get that from me. I think it's a case of…internalized homophobia."

"Where did you come up with that?"

"At my P-Flag meeting. I am now the assistant treasurer of the North Boston Chapter."

"Good for you, Ma. I gotta go…and I am not homophobic on the inside or the out."

"Fine."

"Fine. I'll see you in two weeks."

"Maybe sooner. I might just take a trip to your big gay island."

"Why?"

"Why not? I like the beach."

Jane broke into a grin. "You'd be welcome, Ma. I love you."

"I love you, too, baby. Drive carefully. I have to text Maura that you left so she can triangulate your route or something." Angela pulled out her phone as Jane turned the corner with a wave, the Who's "Baba O'Reilly" blasting from the speakers.

By the time she had crossed into Connecticut, she was exasperated by boredom, her muscles were coiled tight under her t-shirt, and her legs jittered against the steering wheel. The miles of blacktop ahead of her seemed endless, every song on her ipod was irritating, there was no ballgame on the radio, and the book on CD that Maura had bought for her, a mystery novel whose killer Jane guessed by the third chapter had aggravated her to the point that she'd popped out the disk and flung it over her shoulder into the back of the truck.

She stabbed at the console with one long finger and brought up her phone's bluetooth. "Call Maura cell." She growled at the computerized voice.

"Call Maurice L.?" The voice asked pleasantly.

"No! Call. Maura. Cell." Jane screamed.

"Okay. I will call Maurice L." The phone began to ring the mobile of one of Jane's confidential informants, Maurice Lebowsky, a shady disbarred lawyer with a meth habit.

"Cocksucking piece of shit!" She stabbed the console again and the call disconnected.

She flipped on the ipod again and listened to two songs from the Grease soundtrack, which led to a daydream about making out with Maura in the backseat of a souped-up hot rod. She contemplated doing something about the feelings this evoked, but the thought of being found by the Connecticut State Troopers dead in a wreak with her hand jammed into her shorts quickly quelled her passion.

"I'm bored, Jo!" She growled, but the little dog merely peered at her in the rearview mirror.

She punched up the phone again, over-enunciating. "Call Maura."

"Shall I call Maura home?"

"No."

"Shall I call Maura cell?"

"Yes."

Maura answered, breathless on the fourth ring. "Jane, are you all right?"

"Yeah, babe, I'm fine."

"By my calculations you should be between seven and fifteen miles outside of Storrs, Connecticut. Storrs is the home of the National Undersea Research Center. They do fascinating work."

Jane chuckled, just hearing her girlfriend's voice improved her mood. "I think I'll pass on that for today."

"Of course, you have a schedule to keep. You should stop to use the bathroom in Connecticut. There are no rest stops on Long Island. I'm sure you have already consumed a liter or more of some sugary soft drink. You'll need to relieve your bladder soon. You should walk Jo as well."

"Got it. I miss you, Maura, and I'm bored."

"I miss you too, love. Why don't you count homosexual vehicles?"

"What?"

"Vehicles driven by gay people, Jane. Sometimes the bumper sticker will give it away, other times you will catch a glimpse of the driver and your gay-sonar will ping."

"Gay-dar, Maur. My gay-dar is terrible, and yours is worse."

Maura laughed on the other end of the line, a silvery sound that made Jane's heart soar. "That's debatable, but I don't have time to debate right now."

"Do you have a patient?"

"Yes! Hundreds of them."

"Hundreds? How is that possible? Is there some sort of outbreak on the island? Ebola?"

"No, of course not. I did a bit of advertising and it's paid off. Faye gave me the idea. I'll tell you all about it when you get here. Drive safely, Jane. You carry my heart with you."

Jane smiled, her eyes growing moist. "I will. See you soon."

_Homosexual vehicles. _Jane shook her head, but no sooner had she laughed off the idea, a canary yellow mustang passed her, the New Jersey license plate read NOTSTR8.

"Score one for the homos." She informed Jo.

* * *

Maura woke with her alarm at five. She never hit snooze, but allowed herself the luxury of listening to Giulietta Simionato sing "Strida la Vampa" in its entirety. Maybe an aria about a gypsy woman burning her only child alive by accident was a poor choice to start her day, but the pulsing rhythm of the piece did get her blood stirring in the morning. If Jane were here, she would be complaining and pulling the pillow over her head. She allowed herself another minute to miss Jane, her dark curls splayed messily against the white sheets, her long body curled up like a child, innocent in sleep and then she arose.

Maura's set hours in the Cherry Grove Medical Office were from seven to one every day, though she was always on call in case of an emergency. Dr. Argentina had explained that the firehouse had a signal, a series of alarm bells that could be heard from one end of the town to the other; one long blast sounded each day at noon, three short blasts indicated a fire, two long and a short was a medical emergency and she should immediately report to the clinic. She was also instructed to take the red cross flag that hung on a short pole outside of her office with her should she visit the beach and plant it in the sand next to her towel so she could be located quickly if necessary.

She had spent the previous two days sitting on her Adirondack chair on the small front porch of the clinic in her starched white lab coat, waiting for her patients, but no one had come; not a single person had needed stitches, a burn poultice or even an aspirin all weekend. Once, a young man in hot pink spandex shorts approached her and her heartbeat quickened. He looked healthy, but the outward appearance of salubrity could easily mask a myriad of illnesses; many of the bodies on Maura's autopsy table appeared perfectly fit at first glance. This young man, however, just stepped up to say hello and pass her a glossy postcard advertising the "Great Cock Gobble", Cherry Grove's own hotdog eating contest at the Ice Palace Hotel pool the following afternoon.

Today, she hoped, would be different. She showered and dressed carefully in a sunny yellow blouse and crisp blue slacks. Her linen Louboutin heels were modest but lent her an air of confidence, pushing her height above the average threshold into that of "almost tall." She laid out a set of black scrubs on top of her neatly made bed to wear later for Jane, sans panties and bra.

When she opened the door to the clinic, she was greeted by a nurse in a pristine white uniform, including white stockings and a starched white cap emblazoned with a red cross, the likes of which hadn't been seen on any RN's head since the middle of the last century. The woman was a little smaller than Maura in her heels and very muscular with café au lait skin and dramatically high cheek bones. _Pilates. _Maura thought to herself _Pilates and perhaps some Native American blood_. But when she spoke, the doctor was suddenly uncertain if she was, in fact, a woman.

Maura smiled nervously and held out her hand. "I'm Dr. Isles. Dr. Argentina didn't mention that I'd have an assistant. Do you work Monday through Friday?"

The hand that clasped hers was large and broad, heavily calloused, but with bright red painted nails. "I'm nurse D'Fwan. I work when the mood strikes me."

"I see." Maura was now certain that the person in the nurse's dress was, at least biologically, male. At closer inspection she had a prominent Adam's apple and noticeable stubble despite a close shave. Her voice was a low baritone, bordering on bass.

"Where did you train? I've worked with some fine nurses when I was an intern. It's always been my opinion that nurses are perhaps better informed than doctors when it comes to…"

D'Fwan arched one carefully plucked eyebrow. "Oh, I'm not a real nurse. I'm a naughty nurse."

Maura didn't know what to say. She stood in the middle of her immaculate examining room with a sickly grin plastered on her face. Four years of medical school, three more years of internship and residency, and fifteen years in practice hadn't prepared her for dealing with a naughty nurse.

"Don't worry, Doctor, I won't get in your way. I just like to have a backdrop for my fantasy. I've helped Dr. A from time to time. I know my way around medical instruments and what not; I was a medic in Desert Storm."

"Oh." Was all Maura could muster. "Are you in the military?"

"Not anymore. I work in construction. Jackhammer."

That explained the strong calloused hands and ropey muscles.

"We have our work cut out for us today, Doctor. There are about fifty women waiting outside your office and it ain't even seven yet."

And just like that, Maura had an assistant.

* * *

Jane skidded into the parking lot, her tires spraying gravel in grey arcs. She slammed the shift into park and leaped from the Jeep, tossing her lone bag over her shoulder and lifting Jo Friday in one choreographed movement.

"Hey, Fish Farm, watch where you're going!"

"What?" She turned to see an elderly man in a pink crew neck sweater and lemon yellow bermuda shorts glaring at her, his hands resting on his hips in a posture of pure annoyance.

"You nearly ran me down and you peppered my poor Pussy with stones."

Jane frowned in confusion until she noticed the cat carrier on the ground between two feet clad in tasseled white loafers.

"Oh, sorry. I…I didn't want to miss the ferry."

The man smirked. "Couldn't wait another hour to get howling drunk and puke in the dunes with the rest of the day-tripping tuna."

"Don't listen to her." Another man, in a lilac polo shirt and oversized straw sunhat joined them. "She's nothing but a bitter old queen who has forgotten that she spent every summer from Lynnie Johnson to Ronnie Reagan puking in those dunes…" He leaned conspiratorially toward Jane, "…and that puke was more semen than Seagram's, if you know what I mean."

"Joan!" Pink sweater screeched. "You're an evil witch."

"And you're an old, dried up twat." The pair kissed lightly on the lips and headed for the ferry dock arm in arm, the cat carrier swinging between them.

Jo Friday whined and Jane put her down on the gravel where she peed for a full minute. Maura had been right, there were no highway rest stops on Long Island. She checked her watch, hoping that she too had time to pee before the boat left. Jo didn't seem inclined to poop, so she scooped her up and hurried toward the dock where three white double decker ferries bobbed in the brackish water, their engines already thrumming.

She patted her hip pockets; keys, check, phone…no phone. _Shit._

With a growl of frustration, she shouldered her dog and her bag and returned to the truck, rooting around in the passenger seat until she found her phone under a discarded bag of pizza-flavored Combos. A new text from Maura had come through.

**Brava, Jane! You made the trip in just under four and a half hours, which means you drove within the speed limit. There are three ferries out of Sayville; just follow the homosexuals and I will meet you on the dock in half an hour.**

Jane texted back, **Braless?**

**Yes, but I had a problem with the panties; removing the crotch panel undermines the integrity of the garment. I have decided to go ****"****Orlando.****"**

Jane stared at the phone dumbly, then grinned. **Commando, **she typed, then added an emoticon of a drooling smiley face and jammed the phone into her pocket.

_Follow the homosexuals._ Even with her poorly calibrated gay-dar, Jane had no doubt that the pair she had just encountered would fit that description. She looked out across the expanse of the parking field and caught sight of a pink sweater disappearing into the white metal hull of the middle ferry.

She adjusted Jo in her arms and took off at a fast trot toward the spot of pink which was growing smaller and smaller as a crew member pulled the hull door closed. "Waaaiiiit!" She howled, blessing Maura's OCD as the doctor had purchased tickets in advance and tucked Jane's copy into the case of her iphone. She sprinted through the empty boarding queue, waving her ticket.

"Miss! You have to pay for the dog." A nervous teenage ticket clerk shouted as Jane blurred past, but Maura had thought of that, too. Jo Friday's ticket was neatly sealed in a ziploc sandwich baggie and safety pinned to her leash…which was in the trunk of the Jeep.

"Your mother's cock!" One vein throbbed in Jane's temple as she turned to the jittery teenager who began to cry, big tears running down her freckled checks.

"No, not you, sweetie…It's just something I say when I'm angry at myself." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a fifty. "Will this cover the dog?"

The girl sniffled and nodded.

"Good. Keep the change."

With two long strides, she was up the steps and slipping through the metal door just as the big boat pulled away from the dock.

"C'mon Jo, let's sit on top and get some sun. Maybe we can wave to Maura when we get close to Cherry Grove."

The little dog wagged her tail, clearly game for whatever her mother had in mind.

"Hey, Tuna Boat, you're on the wrong ship."

"What?" Jane spun, halfway up the white metal stairs to the open deck above.

Pink sweater was looking at her, amused. "This little old ferry is going to the Pines." He pointed to an identical boat rapidly pulling away from them as they exited the narrow channel and approached the open waters of the Great South Bay. "That boat's going to Cherry Grove."

"You're shittin' me."

"I shit you not, Fish Sticks."

"Fuck." Jane dropped heavily onto the steps and Jo sat beside her.

Jane pulled out her phone. Maura had sent another text. **I am very excited, Jane. I****'****ve missed you. **An emoticon of a smiling face with hearts for eyes followed her words.

Jane texted back. **For once in your life you were not specific enough, babe. I followed the ****"****homosexuals****" ****right onto the Pines ferry. **

A moment later her phone dinged with a reply. **Jane, I thought you****'****d read the signs. The terminals are clearly designated with placards depicting their destinations and are color-coded for easier differentiation at a distance: Cherry Grove in red tones and Pines in green. The third destination, Sailor****'****s Haven is, I believe, advertised with blue signage. That, however, is not at issue since it is not a homosexual destination.**

Jane sighed. She hadn't read the signs; there was no getting around that. **Sorry, Maur. I****'****ll get there as soon as I can. Go back to the house, but DON****'****T PUT ON A BRA! **She added a smiley face with its tongue hanging out.

She stuffed the phone back in her pocket. "This sucks my left tit."

"I told you, Joan, this one is not Pines material. She's a typical Grove dyke."

Jane wasn't sure whether she should be insulted. "What's Pines material?"

"Oh, you know…" straw sunhat replied, waving his hand. "High-end fag hags. Madonna has a place there and the other one…" He snapped his fingers, but the gesture did nothing to improve his memory.

"There aren't too many clam buckets in the Pines."

Jane groaned. "Tuna boat, clam bucket, fish stick…I take it you don't like women."

"I love women." Pink sweater rested a bejeweled hand against his chest. "I don't like vagina. In fact, I've only been in a woman once and I cried for months after."

"Okay…what's the punch line?" Jane curled her hand in the universal gesture of "let me have it."

"She's talking about being born."

Jane clutched her stomach and roared in a paroxysm of false laughter, then immediately returned to her sardonic demeanor. "Lame joke."

"I like this one, Barbara." Straw hat confided to his mate.

"Oh, you like everyone, Joan. You're a regular Polly-fucking-Anna."

"So…" Jane interrupted their squabbling. "The Pines is for men and Cherry Grove is for women?"

"No, not at all."

"The Pines is snooty and mostly male. The Grove is mixed and much more…how would you describe it, Barbara dear?"

"Free and easy? Casual? Wild?"

"And you two snobby…" Jane tried to think of something as insulting as all the fish references to pay the pair back. "…kielbasas, uh, bratwursts, are clearly Pines material?"

The couple giggled. "You flatter us both. If only we were kielbasas and wurst. I'm lucky if I'm a Vienna sausage, and Marty is barely a cocktail wiener."

"That's right. When God was giving out cocks, I thought he said 'clocks' and I forgot to set mine."

Not to be outdone, straw hat mimed opening his fly and shrieked in horror. "I thought he said 'jocks' and I was busy blowing one behind a cloud that day."

Jane laughed despite herself. She liked these two crazy old coots.

"But to answer your question, we are not Pines material…at all. We live in Cherry Grove from May through October and then we trudge back to our depressing walk-up in Yonkers for the rest of the year."

"Every Monday we make a trip to the Pines for afternoon tea. Our old friend, Madam Butthole-fly sings at a piano bar from noon until four. The three of us drink too many dirty martinis, weep into our glasses, and renew our suicide pact."

"Sounds pathetic." Jane dead-panned.

"It is. Dreadfully so. Join us?"

"Maybe another time. I have to get to Cherry Grove."

Straw hat sighed. "What are you rushing to? Are you in that lesbian wedding party? I saw two crab patties dressed in matching white gowns get on the Cherry Grove ferry. You dykes are all so quick to marry. Boring, isn't it, Barbara?"

"Oh, I don't know, Joan, I've dreamed of a big, royal wedding since I was a little girl. I dreamed of a prince and I wound up with an old queen."

"No. You wound up being an old queen."

"Yes, that too." He turned back to Jane who was watching the pair with undisguised amusement. "Where are you staying in the Grove? That overpriced cum-bucket with the hepatitis pool?"

Jane snorted. "Nah, we have a…" She thought back to Maura's description of their accommodations for the next two weeks. "…a well-appointed cottage with adequate living space, not unpleasant at all."

"Hmm. Sounds lovely. Which walk?"

"Doctor walk."

"We're right around the corner on Duryea. Oh, I have a juicy little tidbit of Grove gossip that I'll share with you." Pink sweater clapped his hands and shifted in his seat. He waited a full minute before speaking again, hoping to elicit eagerness in his listener, but Jane just stretched out her long legs and looked bored. She didn't know anyone on Cherry Grove and frankly didn't give a crap.

"Aren't you just a little bit curious?" He finally blurted.

"Not really, but I'm sure you'll tell me anyway."

"Well, Cherry Grove has a new doctor."

Jane sat up and narrowed her eyes, momentarily forgetting her lack of interest in the beach town and its drama. The detective in her soon took over, and she relaxed into her previous pose of studied nonchalance. "Yeah, so?"

"She's a real looker…if you like that sort of thing."

"What sort of thing?" Jane asked, adjusting Jo Friday's collar to hide her interest.

Pink sweater screwed up his mouth into a rictus of disgust. "A hairless chest with great globs of fat hanging from it." He shuddered.

"No!" Jane sat up, bringing her clasped hands toward her chest in a pantomime of outrage and shock. "The doctor is a woman and she has…" She gasped loudly. "…breasts!"

"Yes! Not only breasts, but she oozes estrogen. It's obscene. Mark my words, Barbara, by Labor Day half the queens on the island will be wearing Dr. Isles drag. Goodbye Cher and Judy Garland, Diana Ross and Miss Bette Davis."

Jane snickered. "So that's your big gossip?"

"Only part of it. The dykes are all in a dither. The new doctor is like catnip to them."

"Pussy nip." Straw hat corrected. "Speaking of which, Miss Pussy is still overwrought from her ordeal. She needs a highball, Barbara."

"Well you certainly don't have one to give her. Your balls are so low you could store them in your socks."

"At least I still have them, darling."

"Useless appendages, like Christmas lights on a cactus."

"Don't mind us, we've been sniping at each other for 46 years."

Despite herself, Jane felt a twinge of jealousy. Maura had spent the weekend alone on Fire Island, the gayest destination on the East coast, perhaps in the entire country. Fire Island was nearly synonymous with gay. How many times had she been teased as a teenager. "Hey, it's Lezzoli, mayor of Fire Island" or "Jane only applied to one college; the Lezziversity of Fire Island." Fire Island was swarming with lesbians, and those lesbians were swarming around her Maura.

"About that doctor…" She blurted, not caring anymore if she sounded too interested. "…she's single?"

"I didn't see any hulking neanderthal butch standing guard over her. I expect she took the position to find herself a stud."

"Of course she did. There was a line around the block this morning. Must have been two hundred dykes waiting to see her. All of a sudden every lesbo on the island has developed a vaginal infection that they want the doctor to look at."

Jane was clenching her jaw, but she had to know. "For real?"

"Mmm-hmm. I saw it myself. I bet she sniffed each pussy till she found the one that smelled best to her."

"Joan, I'm going to vomit up that lovely little frittata you made for breakfast. Really, stop."

The motion of the boat changed, the rhythmic thrum of diesel engines changed to a harsher whirr as the captain downshifted and the large boat drew alongside the pier. Jane scanned the small group waiting to meet the ferry. She half-expected that Maura would be among them, that somehow she would have used one of her scientific travel tricks, studied the map and triangulated the cosine of the hypotenuse to arrive five minutes ahead of the ferry, pulling a little red wagon full of iced cold beer.

"Hey, Tuna Casserole, you coming?" Pink sweater asked, they had docked and the ferry was almost empty.

"Yeah, but I'm Jane, enough with the fish shit."

"Fine. I'm Bill and that's Marty, but since we're friends now, you can call us Barbara and Joan."

"After Barbara Walters and Joan Jett?"

The two men gasped in horrified unison. "After Miss Barbara Stanwyck and Miss Joan Crawford."

Jane looked at them blankly. "You lost me."

"You are a cretin, Jane, an absolute Neanderthal. You will need every ounce of help we can give if you want to win over that elegant doctor."

"That's right. We will officially be your fairy godfathers."

* * *

Maura finished with her last patient at ten minutes past one. It was fortuitous that Jane had caught the wrong ferry or she never would have had the time to shower and change into the requested black scrubs and crocs. Now she would have an extra hour to sit with D'Fwan on the porch and have the gin and tonic that they had both promised each other as they efficiently dealt with 362 lesbians, some of whom had waited hours to see the doctor.

D'Fwan had proved to be an excellent assistant. He greeted the women at the front door, passed out clipboards and pens to take medical histories, and managed to be in two places at once, ushering women out once Maura had examined them, bestowing upon each eager lady one of Maura's coveted business cards as they left the clinic.

This had been Faye's stroke of genius. She and Maura had brainstormed on the phone Saturday night, devising ways that Maura could get to know the people in her care, build relationships that would be both beneficial to the health of the community and ease her slowly into the frightening world of doctoring to the living.

Maura had spent Sunday evening printing up fliers that she had posted on the community bulletin boards at the ferry dock, next to the town market and in front of each of the bars that served the Grove. "Ladies: Are you at risk for stroke?" They read. "Elevated Blood Pressure is a silent killer of women. Come meet Dr. Maura Isles, your new town physician. Every new patient will have a free blood pressure screening and receive a voucher good for two free cocktails at the drinking establishment of her choice."

Maura was certain that the free booze, rather than the health screening, was what drew the crowd, but the result was the same. She found a dozen women with dangerously high pressure who had no idea they were at risk and nearly fifty more whose pressure was borderline. She may very well have saved a life today.

She toasted D'Fwan with her frosty glass. "We're a good team, Nurse D'Fwan."

"Yes, but I didn't get to be naughty. I'm looking forward to prostate screening day."

Maura grimaced and took a deep drink from her glass.

* * *

"So I can get a water taxi here on the dock?" Jane felt the stress of her drive melt away after emptying her bladder at the gazebo covered piano bar.

"You could, but why not have a drink with us first? Madam is going to do a medley of depressing show tunes that is not to be missed. She always begins with 'Send in the Clowns,' but substitutes _cocks_ for _clowns_. It's a hoot." Joan opened the cat carrier and Miss Pussy tentatively stepped onto the bar and headed right for a glass of amber liquid.

"Is that cat drinking scotch?"

"Of course. She's 23 years old. She's lasted this long because she's pickled."

"Wow. I almost want to stay just to see a drunk pussy, but I need to get to the Grove."

"Don't worry, honey, there will be plenty of drunk pussies where you're going. You'll get there faster if you walk through the Meat Rack."

"There's a butcher store on the island?"

Barbara howled. "How delightfully innocent you are, Jane dear. The Meat Rack is a butcher store of sorts. All the boys hang their best cuts of beef out and you can have your pick; from short ribs to fat back."

"Don't listen to her, darling. That's no place for a lady. Do yourself a favor and take the water taxi." An elderly, obese man wearing a short kimono and the elaborate white face paint of a geisha approached carrying a lacquer fan and an enormous tropical drink. "I'm Myron, but my friends call me Madam Butthole-Fly.

"I'm Jane and my friends call me Jane."

"Ah, a droll sense of humor. So many dykes are just plain humorless. The Meat Rack is deliciously vile, particularly at night, but if you don't offend easily, it is the fastest route to the Grove."

Jane nodded. "I don't offend easily. I'm a homicide detective."

"Well then, off you go. Send my love to Albert."

"Who's Albert?"

The trio snickered. "You'll know him when you see him."

Jane followed Fire Island Boulevard, a broad boardwalk freshly planked with fragrant cedar wood, until it abruptly ended in a sandy ramp leading into a densely wooded thicket of pitch pines and maples. The air smelled of the ocean, which she could hear rolling and breaking behind the dunes to her left. Jo Friday hesitated at the tree line so Jane scooped her up and carried her cradled against her chest. She had the bizarre thought that she was Dorothy, about to enter the Haunted Forest with Toto, but without the Lion, Tin Man, and Scarecrow, whom she had left behind to slowly get drunk at the piano bar.

She didn't see another person on the sandy path that weaved in and out around serviceberry and blackgum shrubs, but she could hear movement off to her right and the soft sound of breathing and an occasional groan. She had patrolled gay cruising grounds during her time in Vice; The Fenway Victory Gardens and Columbus Park came to mind. She knew the drill; men would lean casually against a tree, make eye contact and disappear together into the denser woods. She hated making those busts; two consenting adults, harming no one.

About a half a mile in she could see a clearing ahead and to her right, a circle of sandy ground where countless feet had trampled away the underbrush. As she rounded a bend in the path, a pair of bare feet and pale, hairless legs appeared at eye level. She stopped and stared, dumbstruck, at a ten foot utility pole, firmly planted in the ground. A thin man, nude save for a black leather face mask, was bound and tied to it. Heavy yellow safety ropes wrapped around his thighs and chest and his hands were cuffed behind his back, the cuffs carefully latched to hooks set in the pole.

She dropped Jo Friday and sprinted full out toward what she could only imagine was a gruesome crime scene, pulling out her phone to dial for back up.

"Hello!" The man called cheerfully from above her.

Jane froze, her thumb hovering over the final one in 911. The man was obviously not dead.

"Hello!" He called again. "Are you a big, handsome bear?"

Jane swallowed, unsure what to say.

"Ah, the strong, silent type. Okay. I can do that. Here's the scene. I'm thirsty. There should be a bottle of water on the ground next to the pole."

Jane spotted the water bottle and walked toward it, hesitated a moment and picked it up.

"You found it? Good. Let me hear how wet and refreshing it is. Go ahead, shake it."

Jane shook the bottle.

"I'm so thirsty and that water is so cool and wet."

Jane removed the cap and approached the pole, standing on her toes to reach it toward the man's mouth.

"That's right. Show me that water, bring it closer."

She tipped it toward the mouth hole in his leather mask.

"No!" He shrieked. "That's not the scene. I don't get to drink the water. I've been bad. You have to withhold it."

Jane backed away, confused.

"Good." He grew calm again. "Please, let me have a drink. I'm so thirsty, so very thirsty. My mouth is like ashes. It's so hot and I'm so thirsty."

She approached again, opening the bottle. "Here. Just fucking drink it already."

The man went rigid. "Oh my god, you're a woman."

"Yeah."

"I am so sorry, sweetheart. I… I thought you were someone else. I'm embarrassed, mortified even. Please forgive me."

"No problem. I was just passing through and thought you were in trouble…you're not in trouble, are you?"

"Not at all. I do this every day."

"Oh…kay. Are you Albert, by any chance?"

"The one and only."

"Barbara, Joan, and Butthole-Fly said to say hello."

"Ah, such sweet old trolls."

Jane placed the water bottle back where she had found it and lifting up her dog, jogged the last half mile down the path, her eyes firmly planted to the ground ahead of her. She imagined the three men in the Pines were having a good laugh at her expense. She rounded a final bend, avoiding a beefy man in a yellow tutu heading into the Meat Rack from the opposite direction, probably Albert's playmate for the afternoon. A hundred yards further the tree line broke and the town of Cherry Grove appeared ahead.

Jane emerged from the forest onto the wood planked boardwalk of Cherry Grove. Her t-shirt was plastered to her back and her hair hung limply in damp plaits, salty tendrils stuck to her cheeks. She dropped Jo Friday onto the boardwalk and pulled out her phone.

She tapped out a quick text to Maura. **I****'****m here. Please tell me you have beer. Ice cold beer. **She added an emoticon of a smiley face with exed-out dead eyes.

The reply came immediately. **Doctor****'****s Walk is the eighth in. I will meet you halfway, maybe 3/8ths of the way since you have longer legs.**

Five minutes later she saw Maura, cheerfully waving in her black scrubs and matching crocs, her golden hair bouncing on her shoulders as she walked. Her hands were suspiciously empty of beer. Jane groaned.

They met on the corner of Gerard and Lewis. Maura smiled, her dimples popping and hazel eyes shining with happiness. She tilted her face up and kissed Jane softly on the mouth, her pink tongue darting quickly over her girlfriend's lips and flicking briefly against Jane's teeth and tongue.

"You taste like peanut butter and Dr. Pepper, Detective."

"And you have a fine palate, Doctor, but can you distinguish the jelly that accompanied my peanut butter?"

Maura leaned in again, kissing deeper, her tongue probing the roof of Jane's mouth and swirling around her tongue. She pulled back, sucking at Jane's lower lip until it released with a pop.

"Boysenberry and…damson plum, but I also detect pizza and Dentine gum."

Jane pulled her in for a tight hug. "Even your mouth is a genius. I'm in awe."

Maura laughed and bent to pat Jo Friday on the head. "I'm so glad to see both of my girls. Let me help you with your luggage, and then we'll go home and get you both a cold drink."

"I got it, Maur." Jane gestured to the gym bag on the boardwalk beside her.

"That's all you brought? Impossible. You simply left the greater part of your luggage at the pier in the Pines. No worries, Jane, we can send a water taxi to collect the rest later."

"The only thing I left in the Pines was a small pile of Jo's poop, right off the side of Fire Island Boulevard."

"Jane, that's…" Maura shook her head, flabbergasted.

"I forgot the biodegradable poop bags, so I just left the poop to biodegrade on its own."

"I'm not talking about the feces. How can you possibly live for two weeks out of one small gym bag?"

Jane hefted the bag from where it lay at her feet; it was light and for that she was grateful, having carried through scrub brush for over a mile. "I have all I need, babe, my strap-on and change of underwear."

The doctor looked stricken. "I knew I should have packed for you. Didn't you read my list?" She whipped out her iphone and began tapping at the screen. "I copied myself on that email. Here, item number 7— a minimum of 28 clean pairs of panties. Do you see?"

Jane looked over her shoulder, taking advantage of her greater height to rest her nose in silky strawberry-blond tresses. She inhaled deeply; Maura smelled like vanilla bean and sandalwood with just a hint of salty sea air. The familiar scent traveled quickly to the pleasure center of her brain, acting like a drug. Jane Rizzoli was intoxicated with love, high with desire, infused with the well-being that proximity to Maura granted her; her skin tingled, her sex pulsed, she felt alive.

"I don't think I own 28 pairs of panties, babe."

"This is serious, Jane, there are no laundry facilities on the island."

"Well, I guess I'll just have to go 'Orlando.'"

Maura opened her mouth to complain, then shut it, her pique instantly evaporated at the thought of her girlfriend wearing nothing but frayed denim shorts, the well-worn material the only barrier between her own hand and the firm muscles of Jane's lower abdomen and beneath that, the wet heat of her sex. She licked her lips. Not wearing panties was unhygienic, but they were on vacation, at the beach. In a few days Jane would be bronzed from the sun. She imagined her hands on the sharp hipbones protruding above the waistband of Jane's shorts, she'd push them down, exposing the dark glossy hair at the apex of those sun-kissed thighs. She wrapped an arm around Jane's small waist and pulled her close. The side of a firm breast pressed into her collarbone and she trembled at the contact.

Jane pulled her in closer, trailing kisses up her neck to her temple and back. It felt so good to stand in the middle of the street lavishing Maura with the love she deserved. They never hid their relationship in Boston, often walked Boylston Street holding hands, but here they both felt freer still, almost giddy.

Maura pulled back to look into Jane's dark eyes. "Is that really all you brought? A sex toy and one pair of panties?"

"Well… there may be one other thing in the bag."

"A swimsuit, I hope."

"Yes, that…and something else. Close your eyes."

She sighed, but did what she was asked. Jane rooted around in the bottom of bag until she found a small blue box. "Don't peek."

"I never peek, Jane, that would be dishonest."

"Okay. Open them."

When she did, Jane was kneeling on the boardwalk, toying with something near Jo Friday's neck.

"What's wrong, Jane? Does she have a tick?"

"I don't know, Maur. Maybe you should take a look."

Maura squatted beside her and began running her fingers through long tan fur, parting it to examine the skin beneath. The sun sluiced through the foliage above and a bright glint caught her eye, drawing her gaze to the little dog's collar. "Oh…Oh, Jane."

"Marry me?"


	3. Chapter 3

Maura sat on the couch, her eyes riveted to the stone on her left hand.

"Do you know its history?"

"Actually, I do." Jane moved in closer on the sofa, taking Maura's hand in her own. "I bought this from a jeweler in Cambridge who purchased it at an estate sale in Sherborn. This was made by Tiffany & Company in 1927 after an original sketch by Louis Comfort Tiffany for his daughter Dorothy."

"Dorothy Trimble Tiffany Burlingham was the lover of Anna Freud, daughter of Sigmund and a noted psychoanalyst in her own right." Maura piped in, delighted by the lesbian connection to her engagement ring. She could have spoken at length about the contributions that the two women made to the field of child psychology and Dorothy's seminal work on human empathy, written after decades spent studying blind children; but she held back, her desire to hear Jane's reasons for choosing this particular ring overcoming her fondness to go off on an intellectual tangent.

"Yes." Jane smiled. She had counted on Maura and her giant brain knowing exactly who these women were. "Louis had hoped that his daughter would find true love after her unhappy marriage and designed this ring for her. He named the design 'Dorrie's Hope.'"

"Dorothy and Anna were partners for forty years until death separated them," Maura said quietly.

"I know." Jane swiped at her eyes with the back of her free hand. "I wanted to find the perfect ring for you, Maur. Something that wasn't only beautiful, but…" She struggled to find the words to go with the feelings in her heart. "…something that had meaning for both of us as women and partners…until death separates us."

Maura pulled her hand back and covered her face. She took one stuttered breath and turned back to Jane, her eyes shining like citrine and peridot under her tears. "I love it. I love you and the thought you put into this. I'm astounded, Jane."

"You astound me every day, babe. I'm glad I could return the favor just once." She leaned in and kissed away a tear that clung to Maura's eyelash. "No more crying…for either of us." Her own eyes were red rimmed and leaking.

Maura nodded, sniffling. "How did you find this?"

"Purely by accident. I've been looking for a ring for six months. I walked into that little store on Inman Square and this caught my eye. The salesman told me it was a vintage Tiffany with a limited production, but he didn't say anything about Dorothy and Anna."

"So you bought it without knowing and…"

"No. I didn't buy it then. It didn't seem special enough. I was looking for something as rare as you, baby. There are tons of vintage Tiffany rings out there. Damn, Frost and I looked at thousands of them."

Maura laughed. "Barry went ring shopping with you?"

"Yeah. He said he learned enough about stone quality and settings that he could have a second career as a jeweler when he retires. We were eating lunch at our desks one day and I was googling Tiffany rings and one link took me to another and another until I read the story of Lewis Comfort Tiffany, his daughter and her lover. I recognized the ring immediately. I showed Frost and he agreed that it was the one from the shop in Cambridge. We flew out of the station and raced there with the sirens blaring and lights flashing. I was so scared that it wouldn't be there anymore, that someone else would have bought it…"

"And you bought it that day, Jane?"

"No. They were closed. I was a wreck. I wanted to ask Judge Berkowitz for a warrant to get into that shop just to see if it was still there. I had to wait all weekend. Monday morning I got to Inman Square at seven and waited for the shop owner to open and…"

Maura was on the edge of her seat. "Oh, Jane, it was gone, wasn't it?"

"No. If it was gone, it wouldn't be on your hand now, would it?"

"Oh…right."

"I bought it and here we are."

"Do you think I could wear it as my wedding ring? I can't imagine anything more fitting than this."

"No way, Maur. Do you really want to dig into dead people with that diamond on your hand?"

"I guess not…"

"And we should have rings that match to show that we belong to each other. You can pick them. You have better taste than I do. Gold, silver, platinum…whatever you like."

Maura bit her lip. "Silver tarnishes."

"Yeah." Jane agreed. "And it's kinda cheap. You deserve something better. What's the best metal?"

"Well…" Maura sat up straighter, prepared to lecture. "Rhodium is the most expensive metal, but it's very brittle and perhaps not the best choice for jewelry…"

"Right. I don't want my ring to crack if I smack some dirtbag in the head during questioning."

"No, definitely not. That would be unfortunate. Rhodium is out. Francium, polonium, and astatine are very rare, but they're also radioactive…"

Jane pushed aside the thought of her hand, glowing green, creeping up Maura's inner thigh under their blankets at night. She blushed, but Maura didn't notice. "No nuclear meltdown rings, babe."

"Iridium is fairly rare and quite beautiful. The name derives from Iris, the Greek goddess of the rainbow, because of the variety of colors that are found in it."

Jane grinned. "Perfect. Gay rainbow wedding rings. I love it."

"It wouldn't work, Jane. Iridium is extremely dense. A wedding band made from it would weigh more than your service revolver."

Jane imagined the knuckles of her left hand dragging along the ground like an ape. "So what are we left with?"

"Gold or platinum. I prefer platinum; it goes with everything."

"Right, because God forbid your wedding ring clashes with your shoes."

* * *

"Maura, can you please hurry up? At this rate we'll be watching the sunrise tomorrow morning instead of the sunset tonight."

Jane tapped an impatient foot on the pine floorboard. "Maura…" She growled. "Just throw on a t-shirt and be done with it."

"Hold your harness, Jane. I'll be right out."

"Horses, Maur, although…" She grinned at the memory. "You held on pretty tight to my harness this afternoon. I think I have rope burns in my ass crack. Can you get rope burns from leather?"

A soft chuckle floated out of the bathroom, followed by the doctor herself in a form-fitting blue and silver floral dress. She spun around once and curtsied.

Jane took it all in; the sculpted ivory calves leading up to firm thighs, the toned arms, bare from shoulder to fingertip, the golden tresses, pulled into an artfully messy chignon leaving a pale neck exposed.

"Wow." She looked down at her ragged jean shorts, the same ones she had driven in all the way from Boston, wore on the ferry and on her hike through the Meat Rack. There was a violet splotch of jam on one leg. "I, uh… think I should have let you pack for me, babe."

Maura smiled her enigmatic smile that meant both, "I told you so" and "I accept you fully just as you are."

"I passed a Walmart on my way to the ferry. Maybe I could pop over there tomorrow and pick up a couple of outfits."

Maura wrinkled her nose.

"No, huh?'

"We'll go through my wardrobe tomorrow, Jane. There should be a few items that we can muster for you. In fact…" She turned toward the closet.

"Sunset, Maura."

"We still have fifteen minutes." She pulled out a coral sheath dress. "Put this on and please tell me you brought something other than sneakers and flip-flops."

"Umm…I could decorate the flip-flops with some aluminum foil."

Maura sighed. "There's a drag queen boutique on the island. We're going there tomorrow."

"Drag queen?" Jane squeaked, an image of Madam Butthole-Fly and her Geisha costume springing immediately to mind.

"You're an inch taller than the average American man and your feet are enormous. They should have something to fit you."

Jane pulled off her tank top and shimmied out of the frayed shorts. Two minutes later, she followed her betrothed down the stairs in a $2,000 Helmut Lang dress and $5 plastic sandals.

They walked, holding hands the two short blocks to Cherry's, the iconic bar which fronted the bay. A dozen cherry-red tables, sheltered by red umbrellas stood at the water's edge. These were the prime seats for watching the sunset and all were occupied. Jane scanned the three-sided bar with her detective's eye, catching movement in the far corner where a woman with a bandana tied rakishly over her head had just stood and slapped a bill on the bar top. She dropped Maura's hand and bounded across the room, reaching the seat a split second before her closest competitor.

"Yes!" She pumped her fist. "Even in a dress, Jane Rizzoli moves like a tiger."

The woman she had beat out for the seat merely rolled her eyes and moved lugubriously off toward the bathrooms.

"Sit, babe." She pulled out the stool and Maura boosted herself up, crossing her legs gracefully at the knee.

A ray of light from the dying sun glittered off of the bay and caught the large diamond on Maura's left hand. Jane rested her own hand beside it, the stones in her promise ring shimmering with equal brilliance.

"What to drink?" The bartender approached. She was a solidly built woman with a Slavic accent, close-cropped grey hair and an enormous mole on the very tip of her nose.

Maura raised her hand, reaching out toward the woman's face.

"Don't even think about it, Doctor." Jane hissed.

"But…"

"You can do it, Maur. I have faith in you. Ignore it."

Maura pressed her lips together so tightly that they formed a white line.

"Look at menu. Fancy cocktailings." The bartender pushed a laminated sheet toward them and Maura snatched it up, eager to take her mind off of the nose and the large brown protuberance at its end.

"Midnight on the Dniepr." She read. "What's in this one?"

"Vodka." Came the answer. "And a little cocoa."

"Hmm. Pink Minsk?"

"Vodka and lemonade."

"Bloody Czarina?"

"Vodka and tomato juice."

"Siberian Winter?"

"Vodka and milk."

Maura grimaced at that one, putting aside the menu. She avoided making eye contact, and nose contact, with the woman. "We'll have a bottle of champagne. Do you have Veuve Cliquot?"

"Da."

"That'a a melanocytic nevus." Maura whispered.

"What is?"

Maura touched the tip of her own nose. "It could be malignant. I should offer to do a biopsy."

"Don't even think about it. I'm sure the woman owns a mirror. If she wants it removed, she can ask."

Maura nodded with great reluctance, but when the bartender returned carrying their chilled bottle, she blurted. "I'm the town doctor. I think you should come see me tomorrow."

"Oi, the vrachikha Isles." She pronounced it Is-Lez.

"Da. Ya vrach. Ya…"

The bartender cut her off, showing no surprise that Maura apparently spoke fluent Russian. "I see you now. You owe me a lot of money." She reached under the bar and pulled out a shoe box, dumping the contents in a heap on the bar top. Easily a hundred cream colored business cards spilled across the polished surface, each bearing the name Maura D. Isles, M.D., Chief Medical Examiner, Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

"Oh, the vouchers. Yes, I fully intend to make good on those." She reached into her purse and pulled out a platinum American Express card.

The woman looked at it disdainfully before swiping it through her cash register, returning with a charge slip and a pen. Maura signed with a flourish, adding a hefty tip.

"This is only for Cherry's. There are more cards at Ice Palace and Beaches."

"I will take care of those bills tomorrow. Please assure the owners of those establishments, should you hear from them…"

"I am owner. Volga." She thumped a chubby hand against her chest.

"Oh. I'm Maura and this is Jane."

Volga acknowledged the detective with a sharp nod of her head. "You open champagne or you want Volga to do?"

"I got it." Jane reached for the bottle and hooked her thumb under the cork.

"Don't." Maura reached for her wrist. "You could blind someone. Volga, do you have a towel?"

Volga pulled a greyish rag off of her shoulder and passed it to Jane. The champagne opened with a gentle pop.

"Ah…soft as a lady's sigh."

Volga placed two clear plastic cups on the bar then pulled them back, replacing them with two real glass flutes. "Go ahead, watch sunset. Volga will keep your seat empty. You tip good."

Maura led the way to the railing where a fingernail sliver of orange fire still hovered over the placid water, tinting the bay in shades of violet and indigo below a salmon sky. Jane stepped in behind her, wrapping long arms around her waist, molding herself to Maura's curves.

"It's beautiful." Maura whispered.

"You're beautiful. Thank you for loving me."

Maura covered Jane's hand with her own, unconsciously rubbing her thumb over the raised scar tissue. "You're easy to love. You're loyal and funny, brave and kind."

"You forgot sexy." Jane murmured into her hair.

"I didn't forget. Your sexiness is always foremost in my mind. You drive me to distraction, Jane Rizzoli."

"When do you want to get married?"

"Maybe in the spring…or next summer on the Vineyard. But I understand if you don't want a big wedding. I'd be happy to step into Judge Berkowitz's chambers with you one afternoon. We could just tell everyone after."

That was exactly what Jane wanted. The thought of a big poofy dress and a tedious reception with proscribed dances, throwing of bouquets and endless photos made her a little nauseated. But if Maura wanted that, she'd go along…within reason.

"We don't have to decide today. We have all the time in the world. I'm already yours, saying some words and signing a paper won't make me love you any more."

"I know. Let's think of an idea each day. We can brainstorm until we come upon something that will make us both happy."

"Your brain is bigger than mine."

"Not literally, Jane. Both of our brains are approximately 1,300 grams."

"Right." Jane chuckled, her warm breath ruffling a stray strand of hair on the back of Maura's neck.

"What about a destination wedding?"

"Where?"

Maura bit her lip, her mind fixing upon and rejecting location after location. St. Bart's? Jane would find it too snooty. Paris? Too clichéd. Rome? Jane in gladiator armor and herself in a linen stola, her hair curled on top of her head in the style of Livia Drusilla. It would make for an excellent evening of erotic role play, but not very elegant nuptials. She always loved the Costa del Sol and Jane spoke passable Spanish. But, maybe they should choose a destination that she had never visited so it would be fresh for both of them; they could discover it together. Although, that would severely limit their options, since Maura traveled extensively.

"Earth to Maura." Jane waved a hand in front of her face.

"I've always wanted to visit Greenland."

"Greenland as in ice and…" Jane dug through her mind trying to come up with something else she expected to find in Greenland. "…uh, ice?"

"There's more to Greenland than ice. The very edges of the island are quite verdant. We could fly our wedding party to Kangerlussuaq and marry at night on the Russell Glacier, under the Aurora Borealis. We wouldn't need a single decoration or embellishment; nature herself would awe and astound us as we exchange vows under the majesty of the northern lights."

"I don't think anyone we know would want to freeze their asses off in Kangaroo Suck with or without a light show. And who's gonna marry us? A polar bear?"

"Kangerlussuaq, Jane. It means 'Immense fjord' in the West Greenlandic dialect of Kalaallisut. As to a wedding officiant, I doubt you'll find an Ursus maritimus with the skill set or jurisdiction to perform a wedding."

"Is that a joke, Dr. Isles?"

"I don't think so, Jane. Polar bears really cannot officiate at weddings." Maura put on her most serious scientific face, then smiled, her dimples transforming her face.

"Do they even have gay marriage in Greenland, with or without the bears?"

"Not yet, but it's pending and expected to be passed in the Inatsisartut since the Siumut party is now in the majority."

"You follow Greenlandic politics?" Jane raised an eyebrow.

"Of course. Doesn't everyone?"

"I don't." Jane took her hand, the one with the ring, the sight of it filling her heart to near bursting. Maura would be her wife. "But, I will from now on. You can update me on all the news from the incest-a-runt every day at lunch."

"Deal. It's fascinating; the interplay of a classic European parliamentary system and the traditionally structured, tribal-based power paradigm."

Jane had no idea what this meant, but she was game. Maura had a way of making everything, if not completely understandable, at least interesting. She squeezed the soft hand resting in her own and leaned in for a gentle kiss.

A collective sigh resounded from the crowd, a few people clapped and whistled. Maura blushed. Were these people cheering her and Jane? Perhaps they had noticed the champagne and diamond engagement rings? But when she turned to acknowledge the applause, everyone had returned to their conversations, paying no mind to them at all.

"It's the sunset, babe. They were cheering the sunset and we missed it."

"Oh. I don't mind. I would rather kiss you than see a sunset or the aurora borealis or anything at all."

"Me too, Maur." Jane took her hand and led them back to the bar, where a second stool was now empty and waiting for them.

"Borscht?" A deep voice growled from behind the bar, startling the pair.

"What? No."

Despite their polite refusal, two steaming bowls of purple soup were plunked in front of them. The bartender returned a moment later with two enormous earthenware jars and a wooden spoon. She opened the first with a grunt and reaching into its depths with a meaty fist, she pulled out four white orbs, plopping two into each bowl. From the next jar came a splat of white cream which hit the top of the soup with a splash, sending magenta liquid in a cascade over crisp white cocktail napkins.

"Eat." The woman stared at them for a moment then shrugged and busied herself wiping at the bar top with a dingy towel.

Jane poked at the contents of her bowl, one white bolus floated to the surface then sank. "What is this? An eyeball?"

"It could be." A man on a nearby stool mused. "She probably has another jar full of tongues under that bar and a bucket of fingers cut from her enemies."

"I think it's a hard-boiled egg." Maura whispered. "Jane, did you notice anything different?"

"Yeah, the mole is gone. It must have been a piece of dirt."

"That was definitely a melocytic nevus. Dirt doesn't grow hair."

"Back in the day, they used to serve chili at Cherry's. Now it's borscht." Their neighbor sighed. "How sad and bad and mad it was‑ but then, how it was sweet."

"Robert Browning." Maura declared with a grin.

"Shirley Temple." The man answered, proffering his hand.

"No." Maura frowned. "I'm certain it's Browning, from 'Confessions.'"

"You're right, but I am Shirley Temple."

"I'm Maura Isles and this is my girlf… fiancée, Jane Rizzoli."

Jane shook the hand, grinning. "I've met five men today; Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck, Madam Butthole-Fly, Shirley Temple, and Albert."

Maura tilted her head, confused. "Albert sounds rather…plain, in comparison."

"Yeah, but he was wearing a leather mask and hanging from a tree. You take me to all the best places, babe."

"Ah, Albert is still up to his old tricks." Shirley smiled, poking at his cooling borscht with a spoon. "I used to play with him back in the '80s. I really am Shirley Temple, though. My mother was a sadist."

He pulled out his driver's license which clearly read "Shirley Temple" above an address in Massapequa. "It could be worse. I dated a man years ago named Seymour Dick. Unfortunately, his name should have been Touchmour, a chronic cheater."

"Geez, I thought I had it bad with a middle name like Clementine."

Maura leaned into her neighbor. "Shirley, could you settle a little dispute for us? The bartender…"

"Which one?"

"Volga. Do you know her?"

"Of course. I'm either here or in Ice Palace every day all summer, don't go to Beaches very often, it's a little young for me."

"Didn't she have a melocytic nevus on her nose?"

"I don't know." He frowned. "But she does have an enormous mole."

Maura drew her eyebrows together. She had never read in any journal of a growth that could appear and disappear at will. "But, now it's missing."

Shirley laughed. "It's not missing. That's Olga. They look exactly alike; the only way anyone can tell them apart is by the mole. Butthole-Fly always says that if they were making a movie about the Grove, Kathy Bates could play both roles. She would only need a Hershey's kiss to transform herself from Olga to Volga."

Jane snapped her fingers. "That's it. Kathy Bates. The likeness is uncanny."

"So they're identical twins?" Maura asked.

Shirley looked around nervously, then waved the women closer. "No one knows. They may be sisters, or lovers or…" His voice dropped. "…both. We're all afraid to ask."

"Do they act like they're in love?"

He shrugged. "They're in love with money. They own every hotel, bar and restaurant in town, except for the Belvedere, and whenever a house goes up for sale they buy it, outbidding everyone." He waved them in closer again. "Russian mafia."

"Really?"

"Mmm-hmm. This is a cash business, with a quick turnaround. A great way to…"

"Launder money." Jane finished his thought. No wonder Olga or Volga looked at Maura's credit card like it was covered in dog shit.

"Bingo!" Shirley declared.

Maura took a tentative taste of her borscht, avoiding the floating eggs and cream. "This is actually very tasty. Eat your soup, Jane. Beets are very high in betanin and vulgaxanthin, both of which have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Beets may, in fact, be the new superfood."

"You say that every time you want me to eat something nasty; 'kale is the new superfood.' 'Brussels sprouts are the new superfood.' 'Panda poop tea is the new superfood.' Why can't hot dogs and beer be the new superfood?"

Maura ignored her and, as always, Jane quieted down and began eating from the bowl in front of her with only an occasional groan and mutter of, "Tastes like fucking dirt."

* * *

After a second bottle of champagne, Olga, or was it Volga, led them out of Cherry's and up a wooden flight of stairs into a dimly lit restaurant. A dozen tables, covered in crisp white linen sat under French casement windows, open to the night air. Couples, both male and female sat talking quietly over bottles of wine and elegantly plated dishes. A man in a black tuxedo played a piano softly in an alcove next to bar. Jane closed her eyes and listened for a moment.

"'Strangers in the Night.' My pop loved Sinatra."

Maura rested a hand on their hostess's shoulder. "Do you think we could have a table in the back room overlooking the bay? This is a special night for us."

"Engaged?"

"Yes." Maura held out her left hand to show off her diamond. After a beat, Jane did the same.

"Поздравляю! Желаю счастья." She kissed Maura three times, on her left and right cheek and then on the left again. After a second's hesitation she did the same for Jane with an added punch in the arm, American style.

"She congratulates us and wishes us happiness." Maura confided once they were seated at a lovely table with a sweeping view of the bay and the twinkling lights of Long Island's south shore in the distance.

"I don't understand a word of Russian, but that would have been my guess."

Jane leaned in. "Is that Olga or Volga?"

"Olga."

"Did you come up with some fancy memory trick to tell them apart."

"Yes. _Ohne _is the German word for 'without' and it begins with the letter 'O.' Olga is without a melocytic nevus."

"But they're Russian, not German."

"True, but the Russian word for 'without' starts with a 'B.'"

Jane groaned. "I'll never remember that." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "How about this; Volga has one more letter than Olga and Volga has one more thing on her: the mole."

"очень хорошо, Jane. That means very good! I'd also like to add that I'm proud of you. You didn't spill a drop of borscht on my dress. I can usually tell exactly what you had for lunch by the stains on your T-shirt and on Vince's tie."

"I was careful, and I held the spoon far away from my nose."

"Please be careful now. I predict you are going to order the bistro burger with extra cheese; one little strand of gouda and the dress will be ruined."

Maura reached out and secured an extra napkin from an unoccupied table next to them. "Just in case."

"Should I tie it around my neck like a bib? Got a sharpie? Maybe I could write something cute on it; 'Baby Dyke' or 'L'il Lesbo'?"

Maura ignored the sarcasm, but one corner of her mouth twitched; she was holding back a grin.

"I came here yesterday for dinner. I had the scallops. They were perfectly cooked."

"I hate scallops. They smell like the diaper pail Ma used to keep in the kitchen when Frankie was little."

Maura sighed.

"Sorry, babe. I didn't mean to turn your stomach."

"I'm a Medical Examiner; it takes more than an allusion to baby poo to nauseate me."

"But I'm guessing you won't have the scallops tonight."

"In fact, I will. Scallops are very healthy, unless they are infected with the Vibrio vulnificus bacterium, which can cause mild diarrhea."

Jane snickered. "I love you, Maur. From your lips, the word 'diarrhea' sounds like a fine French perfume. You're right, of course, I will have the burger, and for $19 it better be bigger than my thumbnail. With places like this it's usually the more you pay, the less you get."

A waitress in slim-cut black slacks and a tailored white shirt approached carrying a silver tray laden with ice. Nestled within were six tapered shot glasses, filled to overflowing with clear liquid.

"Ladies, our proprietors would like you to toast your future with some complementary vodka." She placed the tray on the table between them. "Enjoy! I'll be back in a few minutes to take your order."

Jane took one glass and passed another to Maura. "The Russian mob sure knows how to treat people. Here's to us, babe."

They clinked glasses and drank, both shuddering as the chilled alcohol hit their throats.

Maura fanned herself. "May I suggest we pour the rest of this into the ice?"

"Good idea. If I drink any more you'll have to take me home in one of those little red wagons."

A loud whine filled the air of the restaurant. The piano player froze with his hands still on the keys. Maura cocked her head, listening. Two long blasts then a short.

"Jane, we have to go."

They made it to back to Belly Acres in less than five minutes, having passed the EMT crew from the Cherry Grove Fire Department racing past them in a quad along Bayview Walk. Maura grabbed her medical bag and, kicking off her treacherously heeled shoes, took off barefoot toward the flashing lights, Jane loping behind her.

When they arrived at the scene, just past Maryland Walk, they were met by angry voices. Two beefy female EMTs stood on the boardwalk outside of the Belvedere Hotel for Men, arguing with a speedo-clad man who was barring their entrance.

"Sir, please step aside."

"You are not needed here, ladies. We will bring the injured gentleman directly to the doctor's house."

"Don't be a dipshit. Someone called in an emergency." The larger of the two women moved to brush past him into the hotel.

"Don't even try it, sister. No woman has ever set foot in the Belvedere, and you will certainly not be the first. Don't make me slap you."

"Slap me?" She rolled up a sleeve, revealing a muscled forearm emblazoned with a Marine Corps tattoo.

Maura pushed her way to the front of a rapidly growing crowd. "I'm the doctor. May I?"

"You may not." The man at the door replied curtly.

"This is bullshit." A female voice called from somewhere to Jane's right.

Maura didn't know what to do. She stood in the doorway with a polite smile on her face until the door itself was slammed closed.

"Oh snap!" came a male voice. "That queen just slammed the door on the lady doctor. So rude."

"C'mon, Maura." Jane took her hand. "Maybe it's some sort of joke that we haven't been here long enough to understand."

"Like a prank?"

"Yeah, maybe."

"It's no prank." The ex-marine EMT spoke. "The Belvedere is an all-male hotel, and obviously they'd rather die than let the likes of us help them."

"Cherry Grove needs a women's space," someone shouted.

"Sisterhood is powerful!"

"Down with the patriarchy!"

A lone soprano began to sing the old spiritual "We Shall Overcome." Soon a second voice joined her and a third. A cigarette lighter flickered on, the flame moving in arcs illuminating a tight group of women, swaying and singing. A few male voices joined in as well. The smell of marijuana hit the air.

"I smell cannabis, Jane."

"Me too, but I'm ignoring it, just like I'm going to ignore the Russian mob and money laundering. I'm on vacation."

"That's very wise. The Russian mafia is notoriously brutal."

"You need a lift, doc?" The EMT's had packed up their equipment and turned the quad around, heading back toward the town center.

"I would be most appreciative. This boardwalk was not meant for running in bare feet. I think I have a splinter."

Strong arms wrapped around her waist and she was lifted onto a seat in the back of the quad, which immediately began moving at a good clip, the pine boards of the walkway thunking regularly under its tires. Jane watched the tail lights disappear in astonishment.

"Motherfuckers."

When she arrived back at Belly Acres, Maura had changed into black scrubs and crocs and was pacing in her examining room.

"I'm so sorry, love. I never would have left you."

"S'all right, Maur. It's not your fault."

"And I'm sorry you didn't get to have your dinner."

"My tiny, overpriced burger? That's okay, too. You'll make it up to me tomorrow. I get to plan our menu for the entire day."

"We have a deal."

The screen door of the clinic opened with a squeal and two heavily muscled men in jeans and tight-fitting black T-shirts half-carried a smaller man into the waiting area. He was naked except for a slightly bloody white towel wrapped around his waist.

Maura met them at the examining room door, snapping on a pair of purple latex gloves.

"What happened?"

"I broke my penis," he whined.

"Put him on the table." Maura directed, in full doctor mode. "What's your name?"

"Dennis." He whined again.

"He put his penis in the pool's filter return and it got stuck," one of the big men explained.

"Why?" Jane's face was contorted with revulsion.

"Jane, please wait outside. You two as well."

A moment later, she stuck her head out into the waiting area. "Jane, would you please call Faye for me?"

"Is it serious?"

"I don't think so, but I upset the patient when I told him that the vast majority of penises I've seen have been dead. He wants to talk to another doctor."

* * *

Maura slipped under the covers wearing Jane's old BPD T-shirt that she had brought with her. She had slept in it the two previous nights, comforted by the Ivory soap and coffee scent that clung to the well-worn fabric. Now that the woman herself was downstairs, double checking the locks and filling Jo's water bowl, there was no reason for her not to put on her own silk pajamas or even to slide naked into the sheets to await her. She supposed it was the sense of belonging that she craved. She belonged to Jane; she wore her lover's favorite shirt and her ring.

Jane jogged up the stairs, making as much noise as two women. "You sleeping, babe?"

"No. I'm waiting for you."

"Naked?"

"From the waist down, yes."

A raspy chuckle echoed from the doorway. "I was wondering what happened to that shirt."

"I've been sleeping in it. It made me feel as though I was still wrapped in your arms when I was alone. Did you sleep in my pajamas, Jane?"

Jane frowned, feeling as though she had failed some test. "No, but that's only because I didn't think of it. I would have, Maur. I did stick my snout into your pillows when I couldn't fall asleep. It helped."

Maura pushed herself up onto her pillows. "Studies have shown that olfaction, more than sight and sound can profoundly affect one's mood and evoke the most vivid memory of a loved one. Most likely due to the relative closeness of the olfactory nerve to the amygdala and the hippocampus, the centers of emotion and memory in our brains."

"Really? That makes sense. Every time I smell oranges, I think of my pop. It must be the industrial soap he used to clean up after work, came in a big tub that he kept in the garage." Jane shimmied out of the Helmut Lang, leaving it in a coral pool, like spilled flowers, around her feet.

"Peppermint reminds me of my father. He's been dead for more than half my life and yet whenever I smell it, I expect to turn around and see him in his favorite sweater with a book tucked under his arm. He always kept a roll of peppermint lifesavers in his pocket. He sucked on them all day after he gave up smoking his pipe."

Jane stepped out of her panties and kicked them aside. Maura was staring at her, biting on her bottom lip. She read desire there and something else.

"I should hang up the dress, right?"

"Yes." The doctor smiled and relaxed back into her pillows.

Jane carefully shook out the dress and hung it on a velveteen hanger, making sure the seams were straight and the garment didn't snag on any of its neighbors. She padded across the pine floorboards and slid into the cool sheets.

"Take off that shirt, baby. I want to feel your skin against mine."

Maura complied, turning onto her side so Jane could fit against her, warm flesh to warm flesh.

"I have to set my alarm, love, but you can sleep as late as you like."

"Mmm." Jane purred against her neck. "Working vacation."

"Yes, but only for me and only four hours a day."

"Except when some weirdo tries to fuck a swimming pool."


	4. Chapter 4

"Are you going to sleep all day?" Maura stood in the sunlit bedroom, gazing down at her groggy betrothed splayed face down across the mattress with one lean foot poking out from under the comforter.

"I'm just getting into my vacation groove." Jane rolled onto her back, squinting against the rays sluicing through the opened blinds. "What time is it?"

Maura glanced at the heavy silver Tag on her wrist. "Ten past one."

"Oh shit." A long tan leg slid out from under the snowy bedclothes followed by the rest of the lanky woman. "I gotta get a move on. I'm going to eat my own weight in hot dogs today."

The doctor groaned, remembering her promise that Jane could choose their menu for the day. "If we're going to eat frankfurters, please buy a quality product, all beef, organic. You wouldn't want to know what they put in the average sausage."

"Nope. I don't want to know, so please don't tell me. But, I'm not buying anything and you don't have to eat a single weenie, babe." She plodded into the bathroom and returned with a toothbrush jammed into her mouth. "I'm eating for free at the Ice Palace."

Maura cocked her head, questioning.

"Dagwatcokgobball." Jane explained, her mouth full of toothpaste.

"Rinse and then speak, Jane. I don't understand gibberish."

"The Great Cock Gobble," came the shout from the bathroom over the sound of urination and then running water. "I'm going to sign up for the hot dog eating contest. I saw the flyer in the kitchen.

"Oh." Maura remembered the young man in the hot pink short shorts who had handed her the advertisement on her first day in town. She should have realized that such an event would be precisely something that her beloved would enjoy; it would appeal to both her appetite for junk food and her competitive nature.

"When I was a kid, my pop took us to New York for the weekend. The fleet was in town and we got to visit the ship that pop was stationed on in his Navy days. Frankie and Tommy thought that was the highlight of the trip, spending time on a real naval destroyer, but for me it was eating at the original Nathan's on Surf Avenue. We saw the Coney Island Hot Dog Eating Contest up close. The winner was this really skinny Asian guy who ate 61 dogs in ten minutes. It was amazing. All the other competitors were big, fat dudes and he blew them away."

"I'm not surprised. Smaller stomachs have a greater capacity for expansion." Maura drew up her hands, prepared to lecture. "Imagine a balloon that has never been filled with air; it's taut and pliable. However, once it is repeatedly filled and emptied, it becomes slack and loses its elasticity."

"So I have a good shot, right?" Jane slapped her hand against her rigid abdominal muscles, and Maura's eyes were drawn to the lean musculature below high, firm breasts.

"Yes. I think so."

Jane grinned. "The winner back then had a technique that I found repulsive, but I may use out of the starting gate, just till I get a good lead and then I'll leisurely enjoy the rest of my meal."

"I'd hardly call stuffing 61 hot dogs into your stomach a 'meal.' A 'meal' implies savoring a special food with a wine pairing that brings out the subtle seasonings of the dish… a crisp Gewurtztraminer to stand up to boldness of coriander or a full-bodied Syrah with mint and lamb."

Jane sat on the bed and pulled the smaller woman into her lap. "I'm pairing my dogs with the refreshing taste of Coors Light, a bland, boring American beer that I can drink a case of without getting full or drunk."

"That's not your regular beer."

"Nope. It's my competition beer."

Maura laughed, running a hand through Jane's silky curls. "Sounds like you have your winning strategy in place. I will be in the front of the crowd cheering you on."

"I wouldn't expect anything less." She kissed a freckled cheek and moved on, raking her teeth over Maura's earlobe. "No bra." She husked.

"Why?"

"The girls need a vacation, too." She ran her hands up under Maura's scrub top and unclasped her bra, slipping it over strong shoulders and out one sleeve."

"You're getting very good at this, Jane."

"Practice makes perfect. Wear something sexy."

"I'm certain I packed the purple Team Jane shirt from the cruise." Maura stood and opened a drawer, revealing three rows of neatly folded tees. "Purple should be in the third pile." She muttered.

"You arranged them alphabetically? You really have too much time on your hands."

"Of course not. They're grouped prismatically. Purple should be on the far right between indigo and violet."

Jane sat on the edge of the mattress, admiring the colorful display of fabric shifting under her fianceé's hands, a cotton rainbow. "Why don't you do my drawers at home like this? It's really cool."

"Because…" Maura flipped past a crimson tank top and a lilac v-neck, before pulling the shirt she was seeking from the pile as well as Jane's purple Queen of All Lesbian's tee, "…at home there are many more factors at play. Your shirts need to be correlated with your suits; fabric weight, stitching, and neckline must be taken into account and juxtaposed to the worsted count, denier, tex and mommes of its accompanying suit."

"I have no idea what you're talking about. I didn't realize my shirt had a mom."

"The mathematics of textile measurement is fascinating; mommes are used to describe the relative weight of a fabric; a gauze is light, weighing about 5 mommes, whereas a charmeuse may weigh up to 30."

Jane flopped back onto the bed, resting her hands across her flat abdomen. "I don't know how I managed to dress myself for 40 years before we moved in together. Korsak and Frost must have laughed their asses off behind my back every day knowing that the thread count of my clothing was outside of the proscribed momme zone."

Maura narrowed her eyes. "Mock if you must, but even to the casual observer, you appear better dressed now although you have the same wardrobe. Your mother noticed, as did Sean and Susie Chang."

"That's because I am in love and glowing with happiness."

"I'd like to think it's a combination of both your internal changes and your improved clothing coordination."

"That's fair. Gimme a kiss."

Maura leaned over, taking one soft lip between her own, conscious of the weight of her breasts just grazing the points of Jane's nipples, hardened to peaks with only the thin fabric of Maura's scrub top between them. She deepened the kiss, but held her body back, just out of Jane's reach, teasing.

"Oh, two can play at that game, doctor." Jane crossed her legs modestly and reached for her discarded tank top, pulling it over her head.

Maura gave in immediately, straddling Jane's lap. "Don't get dressed just yet."

"No?" Her hands returned to Maura's waist, fingers smoothing up under the rough cotton scrub top onto warm soft flesh, stopping only when they reached her breasts. She stroked Maura's nipples with her thumbs, feeling them grown taut under her fingertips.

"Mmmm." Maura moaned into Jane's mouth. Jane's tongue was warm, but the minty taste of her toothpaste cooled and tingled deliciously. "Think we have time for…?"

"We have time for a good make out session, but I don't want to come."

Maura pulled back. "You don't want to have an orgasm?"

"No, but you can, if you want."

Maura frowned.

"No, that didn't come out right. I want you to have an orgasm. I want to please you."

"Jane, I know you're not having your menses and we talked about that. You know it doesn't bother me at all if you were. In fact, menstruation is a healthy and normal part of a woman's life. As your lover, I…"

"Eww, no. Let's not go there again. I want to hold off to keep my edge during the competition."

Maura laughed. "There have been numerous studies on the subject of athletic performance and sexual activity. Every one of them has concluded that orgasms are beneficial. The surge in testosterone, even in women, contributes to greater strength and confidence on the playing field. And in your case, the release of the hormone prolactin will improve your sense of smell, which is directly linked to taste."

"So making love to you will give me the killer edge today?"

"Yes."

"Is that your scientific opinion?"

"Yes, as well as my opinion as a woman who loves and desires you above all else."

"Then take those scrubs off, doctor."

* * *

"I like this place, babe. It's gives off a weird vibe, but it's cool; no cars, no sidewalks, lots of shady trees hanging over the boardwalks, everything made of wood. It's not like anyplace else."

"I like it too, Jane. Have you noticed that every cottage has a name? For instance, our temporary home is called _Belly Acres. _There's a house at the other end of town called _The Legal Pad. _I assume the town lawyer lives there. I've seen bungalows with nautical names, LGBTQ themed names and some others that are in a category all their own."

"We'll have to take a walk tomorrow and check it all out. You've got two days on me, Maur. I'm the tourist and your the local. You'll have to show me all the funkiest places."

Maura reached for her fianceé's hand. "I passed a house yesterday called _Hold Her Liquor. _It was only after I read it aloud that I understood the pun."

Jane drew her brows together. "Hold her liquor." She said out loud. "Hold her. Lick her. Ha! I get it. I assume lesbians live there."

"I would think so." Maura agreed.

They heard and smelled the contest half a block before they reached the inclined wood ramp that led into Ice Palace. Thrumming dance music filled the air, the low rumble of bass lines reverberated through their spines. The primal scent of roasted meat overpowered the scent of the sea. Maura's nostrils flared.

"You know you want a hot dog, Maur, admit it. The human parts of your brain are craving it. Fight the cyborg, babe."

Maura pushed her away in mock anger, then pulled her back, never having unlaced their fingers. "My id may be carnivorous, but my superego will fight the impulse. I will not eat nitrate-laden pureed animal scraps."

Jane put on her best documentarian voice. "This is Jane Rizzoli for Animal Planet. Today we will witness an epic battle of will as one woman fights against her own human nature to devour delicious grilled frankfurters. Who will win? Stayed tuned for 'Id Versus Ego', sponsored by Acme Knockwurst and Fertilizer Company."

"It's superego, and I have no problems mastering my baser nature."

"If you say so. I do remember you scarfing down a dog or two on the cruise."

"That may be true, but I do not 'scarf.'"

The music grew louder, the smell stronger as they entered the open courtyard of the Ice Palace. Hundreds of revelers, most in bathing suits, stood in groups of two and three around a rippling teal-blue swimming pool. A bearded man in a gold lamé mermaid gown floated on a green plastic lily pad on the surface of the water, a bottle of Rittenhouse resting beside him. All around him, in the water, bodies splashed and floated. An oversized beach ball was batted back and forth across the pool in twirling multicolored arcs.

Jane followed her nose to an enormous kettle drum barbecue set up just past the bar. Volga, wearing a "Kiss the Cook" apron, stood sentry over the glowing coals, expertly turning dogs while Olga slapped the finished product onto a bun and collected a dollar for each.

"Hello Doctor!" They both waved as the pair approached. "What happened last night? We heard you had an emergency at the Belvedere."

"Yes, a minor emergency."

Volga drew her heavy grey brows together. "We heard that someone cut off his pee-pee and the doctor sewed it back on."

"That's ridiculous. I couldn't reattach a severed penis on my exam table; he would have to be airlifted to Stony Brook University Medical Center." Maura had to shout to be heard above the pounding music. "This music is terrible and so loud."

Olga shrugged. "The gay boys like it."

"да, конечно. The customer is always right. We give them what they want." Volga added.

"Yeah, like borscht. Everybody wants that shit." Jane snarked, but no one heard her over the music.

"You want sausage?" Olga held out a paper plate with two dogs resting greasily on split buns. "Free as a welcome to Ice Palace."

"Thank you." Maura took the plate in a tentative hand. "Are these made from organic grass-fed beef?"

Olga looked at her blankly. "They are from Costco. We buy in bulk." She reached behind her into an enormous steel pot and returned with a steaming ladle of sauerkraut, dosing the dogs generously. "Cabbage is a quarter extra, but for you, free."

Jane waved away the plate that her fianceé tried to pass to her. "I gotta stay lean and hungry."

"You don't like franken-furter?" Volga asked, astonished.

"I fuckin' love them!" Jane replied. "But I want to enter the contest, so I can't fill up beforehand."

The Slavic pair leaned toward one another and began speaking in rapid-fire Russian. Volga gestured so violently that a frankfurter flew off of the grill and rolled across the patio where a little dog dashed from under a table, snagged his prize, and returned triumphantly to his owner.

Maura cocked an ear to listen, but the booming speakers thwarted her. She stepped away and began to pick sauerkraut from her plate, eating it delicately, strand by strand.

"Hey, Maur, we could have brought Jo Friday." Jane gestured to another dog, a black lab whose dark eyes had followed the trajectory of the beach ball as it popped out of a hand and caromed off of a bar stool. A moment later the ball was back in the pool along with the dog.

"Yes, I've noticed that there seem to be as many canine vacationers here as human. Pets are apparently welcome everywhere."

"Dykes love their dogs." A waiter in a tiny Soviet flag speedo appeared beside them. "Can I get you a cocktail, ladies? The special today is a Penis Colada,"

"Ewww. I'll have a Coors Light. Maur?"

"I'll have the Colada, sans penis, please."

The waiter returned with their drinks. Jane pulled a twenty from her pocket and was met by a carefully plucked raised eyebrow.

"Right, we're in New York. Everything costs twice as much here." She dug out another twenty.

"You weren't looking for change, I hope." The waiter had already tucked the $40 into his speedo.

"Nah. Keep it." She took a huge swig, draining half the bottle.

"Doctor and girlfriend!" Volga was gesturing with her tongs.

"I'm Jane."

"Da. Zhane. We have discussed. You can be in contest. We are hoping it will bring Мир to the community."

"Peace." Maura translated.

"I don't understand."

Olga answered, she had a far better command of the English language. "Last night at the Belvedere…" She paused, looking toward Volga who nodded once that she should continue. "The women were upset because the doctor was not allowed inside to treat her patient."

"Yeah, that was pretty fucked up." Jane agreed.

"There was a protest outside of the hotel after you left."

"We kinda saw the start of that." Jane remembered the small group that had spontaneously began singing "We Shall Overcome."

"Yes. It got ugly later and angry words were said. Some women want men to go to Pines and have Cherry Grove all for the ladies. There is a group, a small group, that wants this, but last night they gained many members."

"Lesbian separatists." Maura chimed in. "I recently read an article in the _Dyke Press_ about the The Michigan Womyn's Festival. Beata was scheduled to perform there this year, but she had to fly to Bayreuth to fill in for a sick Sieglinde. I told her that we'll go next year if she reschedules."

"Oh..kay…" Jane gestured that she wanted further explanation.

"The group that runs the festival spell 'women' with a 'Y' to exclude the 'men.' Males are not allowed at the festival at all. There is an ongoing debate about what actually constitutes a woman; must she be born female? What about postoperative transwomen? Can a lesbian couple attend with their male offspring? It's fascinating the way the very essence of gender identity and expression can be parsed and…"

"Doctor Is-lez…" Volga interrupted. "Contest starts in two minutes."

Maura flushed and returned to eating her rapidly cooling sauerkraut.

"So what does eating hot dogs have to do with gender?" Jane finished her beer and suppressed a burp.

"This contest is traditionally male." Olga spread out her chubby arms to encompass the crowd around the pool. There were a few women sitting together at tables or leaning alone against the side walls, drinking beer. But the crowd was overwhelmingly male, many of them in drag.

"Men like franken-furter." Volga leered suggestively.

"You would be the first ever female contestant." Olga concluded.

"Cool. I'm in. I've spent my entire life competing with men and winning." Jane rested her hand on her purple Olivia Cruise T-shirt. "I am the Queen of All Lesbians and I am going to beat the boys at their own game."

"Good!" Olga grinned, revealing a gold tooth, in the far left corner of her mouth. "You win and we have peace."

"Fighting is bad for business." Volga agreed.

The music suddenly stopped, leaving a silence in its place that confounded the ear. A hundred conversations started up at once. An electric whine, feedback from a microphone left too close to its transmitter drew everyone's attention to a small stage set up adjacent to the barbecue drum.

Madam Butthole-Fly, resplendent in a yellow kimono with a bright pink obi took the stage. He tottered on five inch lacquered wooden platform sandals and brandished an elaborately painted fan.

"What the hell is he wearing on his feet?" Jane whispered out of the side of her mouth.

"Okobo. They're the traditional sandals worn by geisha. Though with his balance, he'd be wiser to choose a pair of zori." Maura answered, sipping at her Penis Colada.

"Zori? Is that a new Italian designer?"

"No, they're okobo without the platform."

"Is there anything you don't know?"

"Yes, certainly." Maura smiled, but Jane was not convinced.

"Gentlemen and ladies and gentlemen dressed as ladies, welcome to the 22nd annual Cherry Grove Cock Gobble!" He took a few shambling steps and fanned himself vigorously. "Sorry, girls, but the thought of all that delicious meat about to go into all those hungry mouths has me hot and bothered. Anyone else hot and bothered?"

Shouts and catcalls rang out across the bar.

"If you can't stand the heat, jump in the pool!"

Three men jumped, dislodging the drag mermaid from her lily pad. He popped from the water, sputtering, but clutching his bottle of rye.

"Now I know that many of you frequent the Meat Rack…" Butthole-Fly continued to more whistling and cackles. "…Oh, come on, I've seen many of you skulking in the bushes and don't tell me you're in there to bird watch. There's plenty of cock gobbling going on in that idyllic stretch of forest that separates our dear town from The Pines."

"What a freakin' ham. Can it, Myron, and let's get on with the show!" A man to Jane's left shouted through cupped hands.

"Get on with the show? Fine, Harriet, you're such a party pooper." Butthole-Fly turned toward the barbecue, waggling his fingers.

A moment later, Olga took the stage and sat at an upright piano behind the microphone stand. She flexed her fingers and began to play. The haunting notes of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata washed over the crowd.

"She plays beautifully." Maura whispered.

Thirty seconds in, the key switched from C sharp minor to C major. The crowd instantly recognized Sondheim's _Send in the Clowns; _groans and boos resounded from all sides.

Butthole-Fly ignored his detractors; raising the microphone to his lips, he closed his kohl-lined eyes and began to sing. "Isn't it rich? Are we a pair? Me here at last on the ground, you in mid-air. Send in the cocks…"

"He has a lovely high-tenor voice." Maura clapped loudly when the song ended. No one else did.

Butthole-Fly bowed deeply and fanned himself again. "All right. I had my moment in the sun, now let's gobble some cock." He shaded his eyes and peered out across the pool. "Contestants, please come forward."

"Kiss me for luck." Jane inclined her head and Maura met her lips with her own.

"I'll be right in front. Look for me if you need support. If you begin to feel ill, please stop. It's not worth your health to win a silly contest."

"Yes it is. Now I'm not only eating for myself, I'm eating for all the outraged lesbians on Fire Island."

Maura just shook her head. "Go, Jane. There's no reasoning with you. Please make sure you chew adequately. Hot dogs are number one on the forbidden list for toddlers for a reason; they are very easy to choke on."

"I'm not a toddler…and Maura, keep the beer coming."

Jane jogged around the pool and leaped up the three steps to the stage in one limber bound. Six men, four shirtless and in skimpy bathing suits, two in bikinis, already stood behind a makeshift bar, each with an oval paper platter in front of him.

Butthole-Fly turned his white-painted face to Jane, his black-stenciled eyebrows rising high in surprise. "Homicide Detective Jane! Are you standing by in case someone chokes? That would be a homo-cide, not a homicide, my dear."

Before Jane could respond, Olga waddled over and whispered something in Butthole-Fly's ear. His eyebrows rose even higher.

"I see." He patted Jane on the arm and addressed the crowd. "Today, for the first time ever, we will have a female contestant. A real female with a vagina and everything!"

Everyone laughed good-naturedly and Maura was relieved to hear a few shouts of, "Welcome!"

"This is Detective Jane." The chubby geisha continued. "Jane, dear, do you think you love cock as much as these boys here?"

"Definitely not." She deadpanned. "But I do love hot dogs."

"All right then, to-mato to-mah-to. Let's begin."

Volga brought over another plate and placed it on the bar, pushing the man at the end over with one generous hip. "Make room for the lady."

Jane took her place, eager to get busy eating. She glanced over at her competition; they were all thin and fit, the oldest maybe around her own age. She thought she recognized the man on the far end as the Belvedere's pool-fucker. He wouldn't be doing that again any time soon. Maura had said he had a few nasty scrapes and would probably be bruised and sore for at least a week. She snickered to herself.

"Something funny, Detective Jane?" The bikini-clad man next to her asked.

"Nope…I, um, I was just thinking of the Coney Island Hot Dog Eating Contest that I went to as a kid. I was sizing up my competition; it seems like the skinniest person always wins."

"Oh." He seemed puzzled. "This is nothing like Coney Island or as they say 'You're not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy.'" But he didn't elaborate.

Olga and Volga climbed to the stage, balancing a ceramic platter between them. It was piled high with steaming frankfurters. Jane's mouth began to water at the delectable smell wafting through the air. _Must be the orgasm hormone._ She thought.

The pair placed the platter on a chair and began counting out franks. "Adeen, dva, tree, chatyri, pyat…" Within minutes a neat pyramid of four dozen dogs rested in front of each contestant.

"No buns?" Jane asked.

This question triggered a full minute of raucous laughter from the contestants and spectators alike. Maura began to have a bad feeling about this contest. She debated rushing the stage and dragging her fianceé back to the safety of their little cottage on Doctor's Walk. She had heard the human buttocks slangily referred to as "buns." Men had whistled at her on the streets of Boston yelling, "Nice buns" or "Sweet rack", enough times that she had googled the terms. What if this contest was not about eating frankfurters? What if the contestants were expected to insert the tubular meats between their own buns? Maura blanched at the thought and began urgently waving to her fianceé, hissing her name to attract her attention, but Jane couldn't be distracted. She had her game face on; she was in the zone.

Jane mulled over the absence of buns. This was actually a good thing, she decided. The technique she had witnessed thirty years earlier at the Coney Island contest would be of no help in eating bunless dogs, but she was glad. The winner, all those years ago, had dunked his bun in a glass of water and squished it down into a ball before eating it, effectively pre-digesting the bread and saving precious room in his belly. Jane had planned to do the same, but the thought of waterlogged white bread was unappealing to her.

"On the count of three…" Butthole-Fly trilled. "One, two, three….Gobble!"

Jane grabbed a dog in each fist. They were still warm from the barbecue, but not burning hot. Each had a beautiful brown char and picture perfect grill marks. She took a large bite and began chewing. These dogs were exactly the type she loved; cheap franks that tasted like bologna. She swallowed and took another bite, debating whether she'd be best served to polish off a dog in three or four mouthfuls. Three, she decided.

She finished a second and reached for a third and a fourth. This was easy. The winner in Coney Island had gobbled 61 dogs with buns in 10 minutes. She only had to get through 48 without buns.

The crowd was cheering and laughing, but Jane kept her head down, her snout inches from her plate like Jo Friday when Ma let her lick out the lasagna pan.

Maura pulled her eyes away from Jane, who was earnestly making her way through her overfilled platter. She was taking overly large bites, which was distressing, but seemed to be sufficiently chewing her food and taking a swig of beer every other dog to keep her throat lubricated. If she kept this up, she was in no danger of choking.

The other contestants were not eating at all. It was not as bad as Maura had feared; no one had, as of yet, inserted a frankfurter into his rectum. The man at the far end, wearing silvery figure-hugging swim trunks was clearly the crowd favorite. He tilted his head back and inserted three dogs at a time into his mouth, sucking them back until they disappeared down his throat only to force them up again and again. The silhouettes of the franks showed through the underside of his jaw and bobbed his prominent adam's apple up and down as he swallowed and regurgitated the meat again and again. He was in real danger of choking, but the crowd loved it. After thirty seconds of this, he spit the dogs into his hand, licked them and tossed them into the crowd. Men fought over the discarded franks, only to kiss them and feed them to the pack of dogs that had gathered at the foot of the stage for just this purpose. The doctor was very glad they had left Jo Friday at home.

Maura squinted at the most popular cock-gobbler. He looked very familiar, but she wasn't sure… She reached into her purse and pulled out her eyeglasses. She disliked wearing them in public, but sometimes there was no choice. With her improved vision she was certain the man was Denis, her penis patient from the night before. She shook her head. She hoped he was resting his penis, if not his mouth.

"Maura." Jane croaked, drawing the doctor's eyes back to her beloved. "Beer."

Pushing a slobbering Irish setter out of the way, Maura rushed to the stage and passed two bottles of Coors Light to Butthole-Fly who placed them on the bar next to the sweating detective.

Jane risked a glance to her right as she finished an even dozen dogs. Her competition seemed to be goofing off with their hot dogs instead of methodically chewing and swallowing like she was. They were wasting precious eating time to get a few cheap laughs. She twisted off the cap of a beer bottle and downed it in its entirety. She deserved it. With a decidedly unladylike belch, she grabbed a dog in each fist and went back to work.

After two dozen dogs, Jane was feeling sluggish. She wished she had tied her hair up before the contest; with every bite, she was shoving a sweaty black lock into her mouth and having to pull it back out with half-chewed bits of frankfurter stuck to it. The dogs that had smelled delicious to her only a few minutes before were making her nauseous. Next year she would tie her hair back and invest in a set of scent-blocking nose plugs, the kind rookie detectives wore to autopsies.

At three dozen, she glanced at Maura. The doctor was standing, as promised, in the first row. She was gazing at Jane with an expression that on anyone else, Jane would have interpreted as pity, but on Maura was probably extreme worry. She was wearing her glasses. Was she crying? Jane's heart squeezed at the thought of making her fianceé cry. "I'm okay, babe." She mouthed and gave a double thumbs up before going back to the trough.

At forty one dogs, Jane was done. Dog number forty two hung limply in her hand. She glanced to her right at the nearly empty plates of her competitors. How was it possible that they ate more than she did with all that goofing around? _Fuckin__' __men_. She had always had to work twice as hard to hold her own in a male dominated profession. But Jane Rizzoli was not a quitter. She swallowed the last piece of forty one that had stuck in her throat and redoubled her efforts at forty two, grabbing for forty-three and four as she swallowed.

"Time!" Butterfly called, just as Jane had shoved the final piece of forty-four in her mouth. She gave it a cursory chew and washed it down with the rest of her beer.

Jane leaned heavily onto the bar top. She was feeling woozy. Maura was instantly at her side. "Are you feeling light-headed? Your blood is rushing to your stomach to aid in digestion."

"A little." She looked at the empty plates of her competitors. "I didn't win."

"Jane." Maura took her face in her hands, taking the opportunity to examine her pupils. "You _ate_ the most hot dogs."

"But…"

"I think we have a winner." Butterhole-Fly had kicked off his okobo in favor of a pair of sensible pink crocs and was dancing ungracefully across the stage, twirling his fan.

"Who's our winner, boys?"

"Denis!" Came the shout of several hundred male voices.

"It's unanimous!" The geisha declared, planting a kiss on the champion's cheek which left a bright red lipstick mark.

Olga trundled onto the stage holding a gold trophy depicting the lower half of a male torso, a hot dog on a bun protruded from the statue's unzipped fly.

"Bullshit!" A female voice cried from across the pool. "No one ate a single hot dog except for Jane."

"Jane should win." Another woman shouted.

"What are they talking about, Maura?" Jane searched her fianceé's worried eyes, greatly magnified behind her large glasses.

"It wasn't about eating, Jane. We misunderstood."

Jane didn't understand at all and she couldn't think. The ache in her belly and burning in her throat was all she could focus on. "I think I'm gonna hurl, babe."

Maura looked around behind them and spotted a silver ice bucket. She grabbed it and placed it under Jane's chin just in time.

The handful of women who had attended the festivities were massing and approaching the stage, led by the burly EMT with the Marine Corps tattoo.

"Let's get out of here, Maur. I want to vomit up the rest of my guts in the privacy of our own home."

Maura wrapped an arm around Jane's waist and led her down the steps and away from the stage.

"Hey doc!" One of the women shouted. "We're gonna get that trophy for your girl, even if we have to rip it out of someone's hands."

"That's not necessary." Maura shook her head. "Jane is my champion and she doesn't need a trophy to prove that."

"Let it go, ladies." Jane managed to get out. "It's my fault. I didn't understand the rules; I should have been blowing the hot dogs, not eating them."

"The rules are always changing, but the one thing that never changes is that women are kept down." Another woman, smaller and bespectacled answered.

"Jane needs to get home and evacuate the contents of her stomach."

The women wished them well, but continued on their path to the stage. Maura tightened her grip around Jane's waist and hurried toward the exit.

At the corner of Bayview and Main they ran into Jane's fairy godfathers, Barbara and Joan, who were walking arm in arm with Miss Pussy on a leash between them.

"Jane, darling. We saw you gobbling cocks at the Ice Palace. You're a regular maneater."

"Yeah, now I'm paying for it. I feel like ten pounds of dog shit in a five pound bag."

"What a charming expression. I see you've met our dear Dr. Isles. She'll fix you up, I'm sure." Barbara winked.

* * *

Jane stepped out of the shower on shaky legs and wrapped herself in a clean white towel. She felt only slightly better. She padded into the bedroom and dropped onto the mattress with a groan.

Maura was typing away on her MacBook. She hit a few more keys and closed it, tucking it under the bed. "Can I make you something to eat?"

"You're kidding, right?"

"No. I think you've emptied yourself. You should eat something light. Toast and tea, maybe?"

"I'm never eating again." Jane rolled over and rested her head in Maura's lap.

Maura smoothed her fingers through damp dark curls, gently massaging the scalp underneath.

"That feels good. I wish you could massage my stomach lining."

"Tea will help."

"Nah-uh." Jane sighed. She snuggled in closer, wrapping her arms around Maura's waist. "Remember how we said we'd come up with one wedding idea each day?"

"Yes."

"I have an anti-idea. Does that count?"

"I guess so." Maura's hands stilled. Jane nudged her and she began massaging once again.

"Don't worry, babe. I love you. You always think the worst. My anti-idea is that I don't want hot dogs at our wedding."

"Deal." Maura replied immediately.

"I guess Olga and Volga's plan backfired. My competing in the contest did not bring peace to the community."

"No." Maura agreed. "There were a lot of angry lesbians at Ice Palace today. We'll think of something to soothe those tempers."

"I'm not much of a soother."

"You're a born leader, Jane. We'll come up with an idea and you will make it happen. I have faith in you."

Jane grunted in reply. "Did I disturb your work?"

"No, I was emailing directions to Kaye."

"Directions?"

"Yes. She and Faye are coming to Cherry Grove."

"When?"

"Tomorrow. They'll be staying with us of course."

"That's great, Maur." Jane sat up, smiling. "I know you've been worried, even though you're doing an amazing job sewing on severed penises and everything."

Maura chuckled, poking Jane in the ribs.

"Oww, don't do that. I might barf again."

"I have been worried. I will feel enormous relief with Faye here to help me. Maybe I'll be able to relax and enjoy the non-working part of our vacation."

"And I'll have someone to hang with while you two are busy splicing genes and performing brain transplants. Maybe Kaye and I can catch a Mets game; Citifield is only an hour drive from the ferry."

"They're bringing Annaliese, their granddaughter."

"The red-headed cutie? I hope she's a devil or at least a tomboy. I'm sure you're hoping she's a total nerd-bomb who likes to dissect frogs and quote from the _Aeneid_."

Maura laughed again. "Knowing Faye and Kaye, she may be a little of both."


	5. Chapter 5

Maura opened her eyes at five minutes to six and reached for her iphone on the beside table. She swiped the alarm off. Performing a quick calculation, she determined that the sun had already risen above the horizon; she had missed the sunrise. She lay back against the pillows and closed her eyes.

She had made it a habit on the three previous mornings to walk the one block to the beach and sit with her coffee on top of the wooden stairway winding down the dunes to the sandy shore and the rough Atlantic beyond it. Coffee and sunrise, followed by a brisk walk in the damp sand and a more leisurely stroll up and down the narrow walkways of the town where she would admire the wood-shingled cottages, noting a handsome set of pocket doors in one or a carefully tended Zen garden in another. She had her definite favorites and looked forward to showing them to Jane.

She rolled onto her side and gazed at her fianceé in the muted dawn light. Jane's face was peaceful; the lines that habitually creased her brow were smooth, her soft lips slightly parted. Maura reached out a hand and traced the sharp line of Jane's cheekbone until it disappeared into black tresses. Sleeping, Jane Rizzoli seemed smaller, delicate, as if her oversized personality added thirty pounds of muscle to the slender woman which she shed along with her clothing when she slipped into their bed.

Maura shifted herself closer until Jane's exhalations tickled the side of her neck. She wanted nothing more than to wrap herself around the dark beauty, bury her face in the hollow of her collarbone and become intoxicated by her scent. She breathed deeply; ebony wood and musk mingled with sea minerals and…and frankfurters. She laughed and Jane's long eyelashes fluttered.

"Hush, my love, go back to sleep."

The pliant detective obeyed, shifting slightly before her breathing once again became regular.

Maura resisted the urge to touch her, knowing the skin under her fingertips would be warm and supple. The depth of her own love astounded her anew each day. It did not surprise her that she had fallen in love with a woman, only that she had within her the capacity to care so profoundly and that after a lifetime of solitude, her love was returned in equal measure. She touched the ring on her left hand. Jane would be her wife.

"My wife." She whispered.

Jane stirred again and Maura froze. Her future wife had had a difficult night and needed her sleep. She was up until past midnight with cramps and indigestion. Naturally Maura was up with her, fussing around the groaning detective, offering antacids and herbal tea, a fleet enema and a mind-centering exercise that she hoped would take Jane's thoughts away from her aching belly and focus them on a peaceful mountain top in the Himalayas where saffron-robed monks rang bells and the mountain wind spun clacking wooden prayer wheels.

"I feel like someone poured gasoline down my throat and dropped a match in after." Jane had rubbed the center of her chest and belched.

"That's the gastric acids from your stomach backing up through your overstretched lower esophageal sphincter."

Jane looked horrified. "So I'm shitting backwards inside my body?"

"No, of course not. Your overfilled stomach is fighting against peristalsis, pushing its contents back into your upper digestive tract."

"Perestroika? Yeah, it feels like there's a Cold War going on in my guts; must be those Soviet hot dogs. But what about my…" Jane whispered, although they were alone in the small driftwood bathroom; "…my sphincter."

Maura tilted her head in confusion. "You have to be more specific, Jane. The human body has over fifty sphincters, small circular bands of muscle. I was referring to the one that controls the opening to your stomach. When you overeat, it stretches and leaks."

"I thought you were talking about my butt."

"Your butt?"

"Um, yeah… never mind. As long as my butt isn't going to leak, I'm gonna try to get some sleep."

"That's a good idea."

Jane had finally drifted off, bent into a semi-fetal position, her arms wound around her own middle. Maura intended to let her sleep as long as she liked today. It would be her last day for idleness; Faye and Kaye would be with them for the balance of their vacation and the older women were early risers.

With a final sniff at Jane's neck, Maura left the comfort of their bed and showered quickly, pulling on a set of peacock blue scrubs with matching crocs. She checked once more on Jane who was now laying on her back and snoring with her mouth open. Jo Friday was walking in circles at the bottom of the bed, preparing to nest. Next she would start scratching at the comforter and perhaps wake Jane.

She shooed the dog off of the bed and headed for the stairs, plucking a paperback novel from a shelf in the bedroom, _Fifty Shades of Grey_. Maura was certain that there were a near infinite amount of greys, but the limitations of human sight rendered them indistinguishable from one another. The title of this book was already problematic, but she tucked it under her arm and headed for the kitchen and Dr. Argentina's heavenly French press coffee pot. Jane hated it, of course, claiming the coffee it produced tasted like snake venom and dog shit. Maura shook her head, smiling. No one described things quite like Jane.

"Come on, Jo. Let's have our coffee outside on the deck." The little dog happily followed her across the simple kitchen and out the back door.

Maura sat at a plastic patio table and opened Dr. Argentina's novel. She read a dozen pages and placed it aside. It was impossible to concentrate on the problems of fictional characters when much more interesting reading material was within her reach. She opened her own paperback, _Chemical Studies of Marine Bacteria from Protozoa to Siderphones. _She had chosen it for its oceanic theme, perfectly suited for beach reading. She sighed in contentment and took another sip from her mug.

The sea breeze was cool and refreshing as it blew across the back deck of Belly Acres, scenting the air with bayberry and saltwater, beach moss and weathered cedar from miles of boardwalk—the scents of her childhood summers on Martha's Vineyard. Maura found herself daydreaming and doodling in the margins of her journal. Instead of asterisks next to assertions she found questionable, there were great looping hearts, some pierced through with arrows. Where she might have written a formula or a theory to research further, there was only one word written again and again: _Jane_. _Jane_ at the center of a poorly drawn flower, _Jane_ underlined and circled, _Jane_ encapsulated in a lop-sided heart.

Maura had never indulged herself in the sort of silly, lovesick mooning that had infected all of her classmates at boarding school; writing a boy's name on her notebook or filling up page after page in a fantasy signature: Mrs. Rick Springfield or Mrs. Simon Le Bon. Her notebooks were always filled with small, neat rows of writing directly related to the subject matter of the class. If she doodled at all, it was a chemical compound; perfectly rendered molecules joined by thick straight lines or perhaps the twisting ladder of a double helix climbing up the side of a page. She laughed at herself, embarrassed, then picked up her pen and signed _Maura D. Rizzoli_ across the bottom of the page. After a moment she added a hyphen and Isles.

Just as she was finishing her second try at a calligraphic Mrs. and Mrs. Rizzoli-Isles, having rejected the antiquated Dr. and Mrs., her phone farted, announcing an incoming text. Maura rolled her eyes; Jane was continually changing her ring tones. Last week, during a meeting with three visiting scientists from Japan, Maura was mortified by a loud belch coming from the pocket of her lab coat followed by a "Boom chicka wow wow."

The message was from Kaye.

**Faye really cracked the whip this morning. We're on the road 10 minutes ahead of schedule. ETA depends on our elderly bladders and Annaliese's boredom level. Probably need to make lots of rest stops.**

Maura texted back.

** Keep me abreast of the situation. We will meet you at the ferry.**

Then she added:

** Urinate in southern Connecticut. There are no rest stops on Long Island.**

And:

** Make sure you board the ferry to Cherry Grove, not the Pines; it's very clearly marked, but Jane managed to miss it.**

It was now eight minutes to seven, eight minutes before Maura was due to open the clinic. She resolved to call her mother. Eight minutes was nearly the perfect amount of time for a conversation with Constance; long enough for them to catch up, but not long enough for awkwardness, flared tempers and hurt feelings. If Constance was in Europe, it would be early afternoon, she might have only had one drink.

As her finger hovered over the send call button, a bestial howl shred the air. Maura dropped the phone and leaped to her feet. Jo Friday was already at the door, barking and scratching to get into the house.

"Jane! Jane!" Perhaps her fianceé had an intestinal rupture or a prolapsed rectum as she tried to void that mass of subquality meat.

A second shriek, higher pitched and more desperate hit her ears as she rushed into the kitchen. She headed toward the stairs just as two long, tanned legs appeared, followed by the naked and bewildered form of Jane Rizzoli. Her hair was a tangled snarl and she clutched her Glock in her left hand.

"Maura, stay here."

The doctor sagged against the refrigerator, relief loosening her tightened muscles; Jane was fine, anything else they could deal with together.

A third yowl and sob had Jo Friday pressed to the floor, whining and covering her face with her tiny paws. Maura straightened her spine and followed the nude form of her lover through the door that led from their private quarters into the clinic.

Jane cleared the examination room in a crouch, her gun, now held in both hands ready to fire, pointing out in front of her. She whipped her head around and gestured again for Maura to wait.

"Stay put," she hissed.

She pulled open the door to the waiting room and cleared it in the same manner. Without hesitation she unlocked the front door and opened it, stepping onto the porch, her Glock still moving in a practiced arc ahead of her.

"Nurse D'Fwan!" Maura appeared at Jane's side, elbowing past her and hurrying to a muscular black man in a nurse's uniform laying on the deck.

Jane lowered her gun, her muscles still twitching with unspent adrenalin.

"Are you hurt?" Maura rested two fingers on D'Fwan's carotid. His pulse was quick, but steady. She began palpitating the back of his skull, knocking aside his crisp nurse's hat, checking for injury.

Jane peered over the pair. "Holy shit."

Maura wrenched her eyes from the examination of D'Fwan's uninjured head, tracking her fianceé's gaze to a shiny golden statue of a hotdog protruding from an unzipped fly, the trophy from the previous day's competition. Below it, on an opened sheet of newspaper, rested a severed penis covered in gore.

Maura gasped, eliciting another piercing yowl from the distraught D'Fwan. She wrapped her arms around her agitated nurse and began to rock him, murmuring comforting words against his ear. "Hush, don't look. It will be all right. Jane will find who did this."

The detective reached for her phone which she always kept clipped to her belt, but it was not there. Nothing was there. She realized she was standing on the sunlit porch of the small cottage, naked as a newborn, and a crowd was beginning to gather drawn by D'Fwan's screams. She debated dashing inside and grabbing one of the neatly folded examination gowns from the clinic's supply closet, but decided that modesty could wait. She strode across the deck and squatted in front of the newspaper. She tilted her head to the left and then to the right. Finally, she reached out a hand and poked the amputated member.

"Jane, don't touch it. That's evidence." Maura cautioned. She was sitting on the porch with D'Fwan still in her arms, his head in the crook of her neck, eyes tightly closed.

Jane stood. "Yeah, evidence of a practical joke. It's a fucking hot dog, Maur. A hot dog covered in strawberry jelly."

She stood and faced the crowd, her police training taking over. "There's nothing to see here, folks. Just a stupid prank. Go back home to bed. You're on vacation. Sleep in."

"Well, what is it?" A man in pink poodle pajamas and fuzzy slippers started up the cedar-planked walkway toward the deck.

Jane realized that the newspaper, the faux penis, and the trophy were not visible from the walk, shaded as they were by the twisting branches of a shadblow thicket. Maybe it was best to leave it that way; this was a gossipy town, and there was no need to fuel the flames. She crossed the porch in three long strides and met the man before he had reached the cottage's front steps.

"The clinic isn't open yet. Come back in fifteen minutes."

The onlooker opened his mouth to protest, but changed his mind. He wasn't going to wrestle with a naked Amazon, especially one holding a semi-automatic pistol, to get a glimpse of whatever had frightened the cross-dressing nurse. He shrugged as if it didn't matter and turned back toward the walkway.

In the meantime, Maura had escorted her assistant into the cottage and settled him at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, heavily laced with bourbon. She returned with a plastic trash bag.

"Is everything okay, Jane?" She kissed a sinewy tan shoulder.

"Yeah, babe, it's fine."

"Detective Jane, you sure do work fast!" Barbara and Joan had joined the now dispersing crowd. They wore matching green smoking jackets over pin-striped pajamas. Barbara clutched a bored-looking Miss Pussy against his chest.

Jane winked at her fairy godfathers. "I sure do. We're engaged."

Maura flashed a smile and her ring at the older gentlemen.

"Amazing. You must have a magic vagina, Jane, though who would know what you have under all that fur. I'm no expert in the fashion of female genitalia, but I've heard that the ladies are waxing these days. Full bushes went out of vogue when Dickie Nixon was still in the White House."

Jane glanced down at the copious dark hair below her navel. Maura liked it and it suited her own laziness. She shrugged.

"Don't listen to her, Jane dear." Joan smiled. "She shaves her balls because the hair there has gone snow white. You have excellent taste in women and in rings. Now let me get a better look."

Maura held out her left hand. Both men oohed and aahed.

"Tiffany?"

"Yeah." Jane wrapped a possessive arm around her betrothed.

"Art deco, a classic piece. Very nice, Jane, very nice indeed. We owned a small jewelry store in Mount Vernon for years. But how did you get her to marry you in one day?"

"I was fucking with you. Maura's my girlfriend. We live together."

The pair laughed. "Mazel tov. We wish you as many years of happiness as we've had. We'll let you get back to whatever you were doing and we hope it was something naughty." They waved and sauntered off down the boardwalk.

Jane and Maura waved at their retreating forms before heading back toward the crime scene. Maura crouched and carefully wrapped the hot dog in the newspaper before depositing it in the trash bag. Jane watched her, amazed at how comfortable she felt chatting with her eccentric neighbors without a stitch of clothing on her back. This was a strange town, but apparently she fit in here.

"Jane, there's a note." Maura pulled a latex glove from her pocket and expertly snapped it onto her right hand. She lifted the paper gingerly and read, "To the victor belong the spoils." She frowned. "It's signed V.U.L.V.A. Vaginas United: Lesbian Voices Arise."

Jane laughed. "That's almost as good as P.U.K.E."

"Professionals for Underprivileged Kids of Excellence? That may have been an unfortunate acronym, but it was a wonderful charity."

"Yes it was, babe. I proudly wore my P.U.K.E. shirt because I was in love with you, even back then."

Maura smiled. "I've loved you too, for as long as I can remember. Do you want to dust the note for prints?"

"No, but don't throw it away just yet. Keep the hot dog, too."

"And the trophy?"

Jane sighed. "Bring it all inside. We'll put our heads together and come up with a plan."

Maura picked up both and followed her naked lover into the house. "It didn't register until just now, but I hadn't realized you brought your gun."

"I always have my gun. This is my off-duty piece."

"You didn't bring it on the cruise."

"I don't think I could have taken it through customs, and it's a good thing I didn't. I probably would have shot Ming."

* * *

Maura closed the the clinic at 1:00 p.m. sharp. She leaned against the shuttered door and rubbed her aching temples. She'd been busier than usual, nothing serious at all, but a steady stream of patients in groups of two and three who stopped in looking for an aspirin or a Band-Aid as well as the same three lesbians who visited every day for a pressure check and a free drink voucher. She surmised that the rumor of some excitement on her doorstep had drawn people in. Everyone was extra chatty, but no one directly asked what had happened. She greeted everyone with a tight smile and dispensed the requested remedies. D'Fwan had been of little help, sipping steadily of his whiskey coffee and adding more and more bourbon until he could barely stand and Maura had to call Jane to escort him home. She watched the unlikely pair slowly make their way down Doctor Walk, the disheveled nurse leaning heavily on the taller detective.

She mades some notes in a journal that Dr. Argentina kept in the small office behind the exam room and did a quick inventory of supplies. She would probably have to make a trip to the mainland to restock her acetaminophen and bandages. When she entered the kitchen, Jane was already back, pecking earnestly at the keyboard of Maura's open MacBook. She looked up as the doctor entered. "You hungry, babe?"

"Not really. Did you find anything?"

Jane waggled her hand. "I found out lots of sciency stuff about vulvas; some of it may actually come in handy." She raised a suggestive eyebrow. "But no solid info about a lesbian separatist group with that name."

"So maybe they don't exist. It's just someone's idea of a joke."

"No, they exist. There's a closed group on Facebook called Vaginas United. I requested admission, but I haven't heard back yet."

Maura leaned over her shoulder. "Their logo is a cherry between a pair of spread legs. An allusion to Cherry Grove?"

"That's what I thought. It will be great to get Kaye's take on this later. Any word on their arrival time?"

"They're still across the Sound, waiting to take the car ferry in Bridgeport."

Jane nodded. "I also did some research on that hotdog. It's not the same brand that Volga and Olga cooked up at the Ice Palace. In fact, I washed it off and took it to the Grove Grocery. It's actually not a hot dog at all. It matches exactly the tofu-furters in the vegan case."

"Aha. Good work, Jane."

"Wait, there's more. I asked the clerk if anyone had recently purchased those particular not-dogs and he checked the inventory, said he had sold one package yesterday, but he didn't know to who."

"To whom." Maura corrected automatically.

"That's my grammar gremlin." Jane closed the laptop and pulled her into her lap. "How was your day?"

Maura thought about it. "Tense." She finally replied.

"Yeah? Lots of angry people, huh?"

"No, not at all. I was tense. I…I guess I'm still shaky from this morning."

Jane kissed her ear. "What will make you feel better? I can rub your feet, or make you a plate of quinoa crackers with that stinky cheese you love, or we could walk on the beach."

"Sex." Maura responded. "I think a dose of neurohypophysial hormone will reduce my anxiety."

"Okay. I'm your go-to girl when it comes to neuro-happy-fizzy stuff and I'll be glad to show off my deeper understanding of your vulva. It's a win-win."

Jane followed her fianceé up the creaking wooden stairs and into the small, rustic bedroom they shared. She closed the door and locked it behind her. Maura had already removed her scrub top and bra. She stood bare from the waist up in front of the open window where an ocean breeze ruffled the gauzy curtains and tightened her nipples into stiff rose peaks.

No matter how many times she'd seen them, Maura's breasts were always a revelation to Jane; they swayed full and heavy above her lean ribcage like ripe fruit ready to be savored. She allowed herself a long, admiring look before crossing the room and taking the woman she loved into her arms. Maura plucked at her tank and Jane pulled it off, tossing it to the floor behind her.

Maura's fingers found their way to Jane's smaller breasts. She cupped them firmly, dark nipples hardening under her palms as she slipped her hot tongue between Jane's lips.

Maura led the kiss, molding herself against her girlfriend's lean frame and slipping a thigh between Jane's muscular legs. Jane allowed herself to be backed up against the bed then abruptly switched positions, pushing Maura onto the mattress and pulling down her scrub pants and lacy blue panties in one motion.

She dropped to the floor between Maura's legs and buried her face in her beloved's wet sex. "Vulva." She murmured.

"Mmm." Maura agreed.

Jane spread her further, darting her tongue in quick runs along the scalloped ridges of Maura's inner lips. "Labia minora…delicious."

Another moan of agreement.

She stroked firmly from Maura's opening to her clitoris then circled the hard bud slowly. "Clitoris."

"Just so…Clitoris…stay there." Maura groaned.

She did, building a steady rhythm of firm strokes, that had Maura moaning, her trembling thighs pressed against Jane's ears.

She knew Maura was close, so she deliberately pulled back, nipping and kissing the very edges of her outer lips. "Labia majora." She rasped.

"Yes." Maura hissed above her. "Very good, Jane. So good…but I need…"

"I know." She kissed down one silky white thigh and back up the other, drawing Maura's own wetness with her. "It's always better when you wait. You taught me that."

"Yes." Maura agreed again, but she didn't want to wait. Her fingers were tangled in Jane's tresses and she pulled, desperate to get that talented mouth back where she needed it.

Jane made her way slowly up to the apex of Maura's thighs, but skipped her sex entirely, blowing instead on the feathery light brown down above it. Maura groaned.

"Mons pubis." Jane whispered.

She slipped her arms under Maura's thighs and lifted, opening her. She ran her tongue in tight ovals through the slick of her labia before entering her deeply with her tongue. Maura pulled harder at her hair, her thighs tightening against Jane's shoulders.

She replaced her tongue with three fingers, moving them slowly in and even slower out, pausing at her opening before entering her fully. Maura's hips moved to meet each thrust, deepening it.

"Please, Jane."

Only then did she move her lips to Maura's erect clitoris, teasing it with quick flickers of her tongue and then suckling it back and forth between her lips.

Maura's breath hitched and she shuddered, a hot burst of liquid shot down Jane's hand a second before the deep clenching contractions began. Jane stayed with her, slowing her thrusts until the last spasm of pleasure had subsided and Maura lay serene on the mattress, her fingers still tangled in Jane's hair.

Jane took took her time kissing every part of her love's swollen sex, savoring her, but avoiding her overly sensitive clitoris. Slowly she made her way up Maura's curvy body, licking her belly, dipping her tongue into the sweet divot of her navel, kissing every rib in turn, finally arriving at the glorious swell of ivory breast. She raked her teeth over pink nipples, nipping and soothing, while Maura stroked her hair, humming her pleasure.

When they were face to face, she planted a gentle, almost shy kiss on the corner of Maura's mouth. "I love you."

Maura gazed into intense chocolate eyes, filled with love and desire. Shifting her weight, she pulled Jane roughly against her, kissing her cheeks, her chin and finally her mouth. The taste of herself on Jane's tongue made her desire spike again. "I want to feel you, Jane. I want to feel you against me."

Jane straddled the smaller woman, lifting her leg so they fit flush together. She began moving slowly, making small adjustments until she felt the engorged knot of Maura's clit against her own. The contact was exquisite. Jane felt it in her spine. All the muscles in her body sang. They rocked together, their sexes kissing. Maura lifted her calf to Jane's shoulder, drawing her even closer. Jane bent and kissed her under the black curtain of her hair, moving faster, harder, sliding herself fully against Maura's open labia.

"Tell me…tell me when I can.." She panted.

Maura nodded, her eyes were closed tight, a light sheen of sweat coated her body. Her eyes shot open, pure gold. "Now…now…I…"

Jane howled her release, shuddering. Maura's hips fell back to the mattress, her body limp and placid. Her slack leg rolled off of Jane's shoulder and she summoned just enough strength to hook it around Jane's waist and pull her close.

Jane rested her sweaty face in the peerless canyon between Maura's breasts, counting her slowing heartbeats, synchronizing their breaths. Maura moved an indolent hand, drawing languid circles on the damp skin between Jane's shoulder blades.

Jane moved first, kissing a trail of freckles up Maura's chest and across her collarbone, but lacking the strength to move beyond her neck where she snuggled into a warm nest of soft skin and fragrant strawberry-blonde tresses.

"Whatcha thinking about, baby?"

"Bonobos." Maura replied.

"Um, I think that must be advanced placement vulva because I didn't read anything about that today."

Maura chuckled, winding a damp ebony tress around her finger. "Your hair smells like me."

"I'll never wash it again."

"You'd better. We're having guests."

Jane leaned her weight on one elbow. "I must really have worn you out. You're missing an opportunity to lecture."

"Hmm?" Maura turned to face her fianceé. Her eyes had gone a soft grey-green in the late afternoon light, the sun having passed over the small cottage during their lovemaking.

"Bonobos, babe."

"Oh, yes. Bonobos, genus Pans pansicus, are close relatives of the chimpanzee. The females of the species are known for their intense and omnivorous sexuality."

"So they're really horny apes."

"Not apes, small chimps."

"And…?"

"Their clitorises are roughly three times the size of ours and visibly hang from between their legs. Female bonobos regularly engage in lesbian sex; tribadism, rubbing their enormous clitorises together to produce orgasm. They also tongue kiss and perform oral sex, which is a rarity among mammals."

Jane laughed until she snorted, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. "You are endlessly fascinating, Maura, which is one of the many reasons why I love you. No one has a mind quite like yours. I can't wait until you're officially my wife and we can spend the rest of our lives fucking like bonobos and laughing like hyenas."

Jane leaned in and kissed her again. "I have another wedding idea. Let's get married in Africa. I assume bonobos live in Africa?"

"Yes, mostly in the Congo basin."

"We'll have a dozen female bonobos as bridesmaids and as soon as we say 'I do,' they'll start rubbing their giant clits together in celebration."

Maura grinned. "And I love you because you accept my weirdness and just run with it. We're a good match, Jane."

* * *

"Faye and Kaye made the four o'clock boat." Maura held up her iphone. "Do you think we should borrow a red wagon to carry their luggage?"

"Not everyone packs like you. I think we can manage between the five of us."

"Four, Jane. I hardly think our friends will use their granddaughter as a pack mule."

Jane grunted her assent, continuing to scrub at a stain in her jean shorts with a damp paper towel. Finally satisfied that the pants were as clean as they were going to get, she tossed the wadded towel toward the garbage. "How many trips did you have to make with a little red wagon to get all of your stuff to the house?"

"One." Maura smiled.

"Impossible."

"I befriended a lesbian softball team in the parking lot of the ferry terminal. A lovely group of girls from Brooklyn. I didn't have to carry a thing but my purse."

"A lesbian softball team? Is there any other kind?"

They took a meandering route to the ferry dock, fingers laced together, enjoying the cool breeze blowing from the south bringing with it the salty scent of the ocean as it wafted toward the bay. Jo Friday trotted along beside them, stopping every few feet to sniff at a damp board or poke her nose into a brush of bearberry or beach heather.

"Be careful, Jo. Bearberry, also known as Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, has narcotic properties. The Unkechaug tribe native to southern Long Island would mix it with tobacco and smoke it for its stimulant effect. They called it kinnikinnick. Good girl, you listened!"

The little dog sat on her haunches, taking in everything Maura said, tilting her head in expectation of further instruction.

"See, Jane. Jo listens better than you do."

"Sure she does. All she heard was 'wah wah, Jo Friday, wah wah wah wah wah. Good girl, wah wah."

They continued on, Jo once again jumping off the boardwalk to follow a scent, catching up with them farther along the path. A small doe leapt onto the walkway ahead of them, stared for a moment then just as quickly bounded back into the underbrush and disappeared. After that, Jo Friday kept close to Jane's side.

"I was going to buy her a new leash at the grocery store, but all they had were pink ones with rhinestones. Jo isn't that kind of girl."

"I saw a rainbow lead in the gift shop near the ferry. We can pick it up now if they're open."

"That perfect. I saw a woman with a pair of pugs earlier. They had on t-shirts that said 'gayby.' Do you want a big gay rainbow leash, Jo? Are you our little gayby?"

"We should get TJ a 'gayby' shirt."

"Yeah, Tommy would love that. Maybe I'll buy him a rainbow leash instead. That kid has a death wish; he's always running into the street." Jane yawned. "I slept so good here, Maur. I think it's the sound of the waves. I'll have to download one of those nature noise apps."

"Well." Maura corrected, unable to keep the word in.

Jane only smiled and squeezed her hand. "I slept so well."

"I'm sorry, I can't help myself."

"I know. It's just one of the things that makes you who you are. I love that you don't give up on me, that you try to improve me."

That wasn't it at all, but Maura let it go. They felt, before they heard, the rumbling of a golf cart carrying lumber traveling fast down the narrow boardwalk. Planking rattled in a disjointed rhythm. They stepped off of the walk, luckily only a foot above the sand in this spot, to let the vehicle pass. The driver waved in thanks as he rounded the corner.

"I guess pedestrians don't have the right of way here. He was driving entirely too fast."

"Give him a ticket, Jane." Maura nudged her in the ribs. She was in a playful mood.

Jane lifted Maura back onto the walk, taking a moment to enjoy the unaccustomed perception of looking up at her shorter fianceé. Maura leaned down and planted a sloppy kiss on her nose.

"You seem less tense."

"I am. A double shot of oxytocin was exactly what I needed."

"I know that one. O is for orgasm. Oxytocin is the come chemical."

Maura giggled. "I love you."

"Did you just giggle?"

"Yes. I think I did."

"You're adorable. I would do anything for you."

"Anything?"

"Yes. Name it."

Maura paused, placing a finger on her chin in mock thought. They had just rounded the corner onto Bayview. The red and white awning of Cherry's was just visible ahead. "There are two things I would like…"

"Oh…kay."

"First. You need to tighten the bed frame. There was a distinct squeak when we were having intercourse earlier. We won't be alone in the house anymore and I plan on regular oxytocin release."

"Done!" Jane agreed. "Kaye and I will tackle it first thing. What else?"

"Buy some clothes, Jane. You can't walk around for the better part of two weeks in those same dirty jean shorts." She pointed to a pink and silver sign next to Cherry's: 'This Ol'Drag,' it read.

"Is that the drag queen boutique?"

"Yes. One nice outfit to wear to dinner at Top of the Bay and a few casual items."

"Casual items? Drag queens are the exact opposite of casual."

"Perhaps, but they're very creative. I'm sure they do custom work."

Jane looked into earnest hazel eyes and could refuse them nothing. "Fine."

"Tomorrow, Jane."

"Yes."

The ferry had arrived and soon an eclectic stream of gay and lesbian humanity began to glide past; a chubby woman wearing nothing but a pair of overalls and a beanie with a propeller was first off the ship, she waddle-jogged behind two enormous Rottweilers straining on their leads.

"They need 'gayby' t-shirts." Jane mused.

Maura bent and scooped up Jo Friday before she was trampled by the slobbering beasts.

Next came a bearded man in a mid-century nun's habit with full wimple. He roller-bladed down the pier licking an ice cream cone. "The lord be with you." He blessed them as he whizzed by.

A gaggle of drag queens were next, cackling at something one of them had said. The tallest stood a head above Jane in stiletto kitten heels and a leopard-print tutu.

"That's how you want me to dress, Maura?"

"Of course not. I trust you to choose something a bit more modest."

Their friends were last off of the boat. Kaye emerged first, an enormous mountaineering rucksack on her back, held in place with straps across her chest. She gingerly descended the three steps from the ship and shifted her burden before reaching back to guide her wife. Faye clutched a black medical bag in one hand and the small arm of a pigtailed red head in the other.

Jane and Maura waved, jogging up the pier to greet them, hugs and warm smiles all around.

"Kaye, let me take that pack. It looks light it weighs a ton and a half."

"I'm not too proud to say no, Jane." She unbuckled the chest strap and dropped the backpack onto the dock. "This one packs like she's going on safari for six months." She gestured to her wife.

"Sounds like Maura."

"I'm not kidding, Jane. She's got mosquito netting in here and some kind of water filtering system plus enough clothes and shoes for the whole town."

"Semper paratus." Faye intoned.

"You must be Annaliese." Maura squatted in front of the little girl. "I'm Maura, that's Jane and this is Jo Friday."

"I'm allergic to dogs."

"So am I, but Jo's breed is hypoallergenic. I don't sneeze or cough at all around her and she sleeps in bed with us."

Annaliese reached out a tentative hand and stroked Jo's soft ear.

"How was your trip so far?"

"Pretty sucky."

"I'm sorry about that. What can Jane and I do to make it less 'sucky' for you?"

The child shrugged. "I'm good, but Nana has to take a shit and Gran needs a fucking beer."

Jane roared. "I love her already."


	6. Chapter 6

Jane snapped awake, jolted by the eerie sense that someone was staring at her. Her startled gaze was met by a pair of toffee-colored eyes framed by flaming orange hair.

"Hey kiddo, good morning. You an early bird too?

Annaliese wrinkled her nose and made a gagging sound. "Your breath smells like farts."

"O…kay. That's because I'm a grownup and grownups can be stinky. It has to do with mouth bacteria and other stuff. Maura or your Nana would be able to explain it better."

The child shrugged. "Whatevs. I'm starving."

Jane reached over and patted the empty bed beside her. Maura must be up already. She yawned, careful to cover her mouth lest she release more fart-breath into the air.

"What time is it?"

"Time for fucking breakfast, I'd say."

Jane raised both eyebrows, but said nothing. The girl wasn't exactly a brat, but she was very opinionated and cursed like a stevedore. Maura had remarked on it before they went to sleep, wondering why Faye and Kaye refrained from correcting their granddaughter's foul language.

She felt under her pillow for her phone and heard it clatter to the floor behind the headboard.

"Fuck me!"

Her expletive was met by a delighted grin, exposing a crooked line of teeth where several had fallen out, but their replacements were only half grown in.

"Um, sorry. Could you get that for me, Sweetie?"

Annaliese scrabbled under the bed and returned with Jane's phone. "It's nine o'clock. I've been up for hours."

Jane swung her legs to the floor, glad she had opted to sleep in a pair of Maura's silky pajamas instead of her usual tank and nothing else. She stood and stretched.

"I find it hard to believe that you've been up for hours and no one gave you anything to eat."

"Maura gave me one of those shitty cereal bars, but it tasted like crap. I almost barfed so I fed it to your dog."

Jane knew exactly what she was referring to and privately agreed with her assessment. "All right. I did promise you pancakes, didn't I?"

"Yeah. You and Gran were s'posed to make them while Nana and Maura went to work, but you've been snoring your ass off in bed and Gran is doing the same in the back yard."

"I'm sorry, kid. I should have been up, but let's let your Gran have her little nap. She drove a million miles yesterday."

"334.3 miles."

"That's still impressive."

The child shrugged. "It's not a million. A million miles would be more than four times the distance from the Earth to the moon. You're an exaggerator, Jane."

"Yeah, I guess I am."

"And your pajamas are too short. You have high waters."

"Right again. These are Maura's." She wondered why she felt the need to explain herself to a six year old.

"You should buy a pair that fits or don't wear anything at all. My parents sleep nude."

Jane blushed. "TMI, Kiddo. Go trot downstairs while I get changed. Be prepared to work when I get down there; we're making breakfast together. Got it? You can take the butter out of the fridge to get soft."

"Don't forget to brush your teeth. I don't want to smell your fart mouth while we're cooking."

Jane took an exceedingly quick shower; rinsing, soaping and rinsing again without washing her hair. It would take half an hour to comb out the tangles and blow dry it enough so she wouldn't look like the Obama family's Portuguese Water dog when it was fully dry. She could only imagine what trouble the red-headed devil was getting into without adult supervision. She gargled and brushed her teeth before and after her shower. She even flossed, a hygiene extra that she performed only when she was certain that she and Maura were going to make love. She sniffed the jean shorts that she'd kicked off the night before and frowned, but her choices were limited so she pulled them on along with her purple Queen of All Lesbians tee.

When she reached the kitchen, Kaye was standing in front of the opened refrigerator, one of Maura's frilly aprons tied around her thick waist, her glasses perched on the end of her nose.

"Good morning."

"Hey Jane, what do you know about crêpes de froment?"

"Not a fucking thing."

Annaliese giggled.

"Me neither, but this one…" She ruffled her granddaughter's auburn curls. "…she spent a week in Montreal with her parents, and regular American pancakes aren't good enough for her anymore."

Jane was tempted to quote her father. When the Rizzoli kids complained that they didn't like their dinner or they wanted a toy out of their parents' price range, Frank Sr. would draw his prodigious brows together and say, "Ya know what they say in the Russian Navy, 'Toughski Shitski.'"

Instead she pulled out her phone and googled the recipe. "Okay. Eggs, flour, milk, salt, oil, and vanilla extract. I think we have everything we need. You sure you don't want some Boston-style flapjacks, Kiddo? I got a spankin' new box of Aunt Jemima on the shelf and my Ma taught me to make them shaped like bunnies."

"Nope." The child crossed her arms over her skinny chest and shook her head. "I want crêpes de froment with crème fraîche and apricot preserves."

Kaye shot her an apologetic look, but Jane waved it off. "No problem. We got this. Let's get cooking and we'll surprise the doctors. You ever make these things before, Kaye?"

"Yeah, but only under strict supervision. I'm not allowed to make a move in the kitchen without Faye being on hand to instruct me. Even without her eyesight, she knows if I'm doing something wrong." She pitched her gruff voice up an octave and mimicked her soft spoken spouse. "Kaye, I don't smell fresh basil. You're not cheating and using the McKormick's in the shaker bottle, are you? Kaye, that sounds more like a sizzle than a sauté. Turn down the flame."

Annaliese giggled. "That sounds just like Nana." She began twirling around the kitchen, expending energy that children seemed to have in unlimited reserves. She came to an unsteady stop in front of a bookcase crammed with paperbacks and medical texts. "Is this your trophy Jane?"

The detective had stored the purloined Cock Gobbling award behind a stack of Sudoku books on the bottom shelf until she could decide how best to return it to its rightful owner.

"Umm, kind of."

Annaliese picked it up. "Why is there a hotdog coming out of the man's pants?"

"It's just a silly joke. I was in a hot dog-eating contest yesterday. I ate 44 franks." She patted her flat stomach proudly.

"I think it's s'posed to be a penis." The child intoned. "Who would want to eat a barbecued penis?"

"Who, indeed." Kaye took the statue out of her granddaughter's hands and placed it on the top shelf. "I've been thinking about that situation and I have a couple of ideas."

"Good! I'm fresh out."

Maura entered through the small door leading from the clinic. "You're up, Jane! Don't forget your promise." She gestured to the dirty ragged clothing hanging on her fianceé's frame. "This Ol' Drag. Today."

"Yeah, I know. Right after breakfast, babe. You think you and Faye can tear yourselves away from your patients to eat a couple of fermented crepes?"

Maura tilted her head, questioning, before recognition dawned on her face. She was rapidly becoming fluent in Jane-speak. "Crêpes de froment? Certainly. That's an ambitious project."

"We got it covered." Kaye answered without conviction.

"Any interesting patients today?"

"Just one, not very interesting; a hydromedusae sting."

Annaliese shot across the room, her eyes wide with excitement. "A jellyfish! Did you pee on it?"

"No, of course not. I just came in to pick up the sea salt." She opened a cabinet and pushed a few items aside until she found a pale blue container labeled 'sel de mer,'

"We're going to scrape the wound with a scaler to remove any stinging cells then rinse it with salt water. That's the prescribed treatment. With a few Tylenol and a light coating of cortisone cream, she should be fine."

"You have the entire Atlantic Ocean down the block and you're making your own salt water?" Jane scratched her head.

"We will be using bacteriostatic water; there are all manner of micro-organisms living in the ocean. Besides, this closet is closer than the Atlantic."

"I want you to pee on her. I saw it on television. You need to piss on a jellyfish sting." Annaliese pouted and stamped her foot. "I can do it. My pee is younger and fresher."

Maura studied the little redhead, then squatted so they were on eye level. "While human urine does contain some sodium, it also contains uric acid, nitrogen, and low levels of bacteria, even in healthy individuals, which can aggravate a wound and hinder the healing process. You should never urinate on a wound or…" Maura frowned. "…or on anything else."

"Except the toilet bowl." Annaliese corrected, her caramel eyes gleaming with triumph at having had the last word.

"Yes. Urinate only in the toilet bowl."

"When we were driving to Montreal, my dad stopped on the thruway and pissed in the bushes." The child added.

"Well, sometimes emergencies happen and we have to make due with what's at hand."

"So you could piss on a jellyfish sting if you had no salt water around, like if you were in a car on the thruway and you had no salt and your water bottle was empty."

Maura bit her lip, clearly out of her depth with the child's persistence. "No. In that case, you should…"

"Hey, Kiddo, there are no jellyfish on the thruway. Now let Maura get back to her patient and start cracking some eggs. This breakfast isn't going to make itself."

She ignored Jane. "What if you had a pet jellyfish named Fuckface and you kept him in a fishbowl on your lap and you spilled him and he stung you in the middle of the thruway."

Kaye chuckled. "She never gives up, Jane. She's either going to be a Madison Avenue attorney or a criminal mastermind."

D'Fwan appeared in the doorway. "You find that salt, Dr. Isles?"

"Yes!" Maura's confused look lifted and she hurried out of the kitchen after her nurse.

"Is that a man or a woman?" The redhead asked.

"A man."

She took in the information, remaining blessedly quiet as she cracked eggs into an aluminum bowl and her grandmother carefully measured flour.

Jane rooted through the fridge. "I don't have any buttermilk. Will plain whipped cream be okay?"

"No," came the girl's instant reply.

"Then I have to run to the store. How about this? I can stop at the Cherry Pit and pick up a couple of dozen readymade crepes. We can tell Maura and your Nana that we made them ourselves. They'll be very impressed."

Annaliese scowled, her little mouth pursed. "That's lying, Jane. Lying is wrong. Gran says it's especially bad to try to fool Nana because she's blind."

Jane blushed, chagrined. "You're right. I'll just go to the store. Do we need any else?"

"Powdered sugar, vanilla, apricot jam, fresh strawberries, blueberry com…compost…and maple syrup."

"Compote; _compost_ is rotting garbage you use to fertilize your garden. Put both words in your vocabulary journal." Kaye quietly corrected her granddaughter.

"That's what I said." The girl snapped. "But I'll put them in, right between _clusterfuck_ and _crap_."

Jane slipped out of the door just in time to avoid the conversation she was dreading.

"Is that nurse transsexual or just a transvestite?" Annaliese asked her Gran.

* * *

"Maura said that I'm in charge of you today." Annaliese skipped out ahead on the walkway, her fiery braids swinging behind.

"She probably shouldn't have said that." Kaye grimaced.

"That's not what she said." Jane jogged after the child.

"Is too. She said, 'You're in charge of Jane today. Don't let her come home without a dress and some appropriate casual attire.'" Annaliese had managed to capture Maura perfectly, from her ramrod straight posture to the raised lecture finger pointing aloft.

Jane had to smile, imagining her love as a small know-it-all, albeit without the foul mouth. "I take that to mean that you are in charge only as far as getting me to buy some shitty outfits at the drag queen boutique, not a carte blanche."

"Nope. You're my bitch today, Jane." With that she bolted in the direction of the beach, the flashing lights in her Power Puff Girl sneakers flickering like fireflies.

Jane loped along behind her, increasing her speed to a sprint as the child rounded the bend onto Lewis Walk and disappeared. "I got this, Kaye, I'm her bitch, remember?"

The older woman slowed to a jog. "Good. I haven't chased anyone since the mid '80s when a crackhead swiped my service revolver."

"Did you get it back?"

"Hell yeah. It would have been my shield if I didn't."

Jane gave her a thumbs up as she rounded the corner in time to see a red braid zip around the bend and onto the neighboring walk. The girl was heading back toward the bay. _Good, let her exhaust herself, maybe she__'__d need a nap. _With her quarry in sight, the detective stopped running and strolled along the planked boardwalk, enjoying the dappled sunlight breaking through the leaves of juneberry and black oaks that lined the path.

The child had stopped at the corner where she was pacing in front of a wood-shingled cottage, her mouth agape. Jane increased her strides, hoping the girl wasn't witnessing a sex act through someone's open verandah door.

Annaliese turned her head, caught sight of detective and waved her on. "Jane, you have to see this. It's the most fucked-up and beautiful shit I've ever seen."

Jane took her time, stopping to admire the mosaic walkway leading to a brightly painted cottage. The elaborate tile work featured two naked men bent over a bench while a third inserted flowers into their asses, or maybe he was pulling the flowers out. Jane squinted at the composition until the individual tiles became discernible; jagged pink and peach flecks forming strong buttocks, against teal and smoke grey, the stormy Atlantic in the distance. An elegantly stenciled sign hung above the gate, "A Rose by Anus Other Name."

Kaye caught up and stood beside Jane, shaking her head. "That must have cost a cool hundred grand. Can you imagine?"

"I can think of better ways to spend it. People are weird."

"Jay-yun! Come on! This shit is un-fucking-believeable."

"I'm coming." She shouted and then to Kaye. "What could be more unbelievable than this?"

The older woman blanched. "The real thing."

The two women dashed down the walk, prepared to grab the little redhead and drag her away before whatever she was seeing could become permanently etched in her mind.

They reached the corner property, an unremarkable craftsman cottage with cheerfully painted yellow shutters. Jane appraised the building with her detective's eye, noting a torn window screen and a furry green swath of mold growing under the eaves where the sun never reached. No one appeared to be home. She exhaled.

"Look!" Annaliese tugged at her T-shirt.

Only then did she allow her eyes to wander to the garden below the foundation. Plants did poorly in the sandy beach soil, leading many homeowners to decorate with artificial greenery and whimsical statues; lighthouses and unicorns, ceramic gnomes and plastic puppies were bountiful. The ornamentation here was less banal.

The bare earth was studded with tiny pikes, each topped with the severed head of a doll. There were dozens of Barbies, their vacant cornflower eyes stared into nothingness, blonde tresses matted by rain and splattered with mud. Baby dolls with perfect "o" mouths tilted toward the sky as if silently howling their fate. A weather-beaten Pillsbury doughboy grinned slyly, impervious to the popsicle stick impaling his chubby torso. Mrs. Claus with broken spectacles loomed above a dimpled Cabbage Patch baby. A hand-painted Victorian girl, half her porcelain cheek cracked off, leaned drunkenly against a Medusa with pale green skin. Kewpies and China dolls, troll children and sad clowns all skewered and transfixed as if to illustrate that death holds us all in equal disdain. In the far corner, a naked plastic harlequin stood watch, the keeper of the crypt, the grinning guardian of the cemetery.

"I want to play with them." Annaliese announced, breaking the spell that kept both Jane and her grandmother rooted in place, their wide eyes darting from one horror to the next.

"No way, Kiddo, this is…I don't know what the fuck it is, but it's not for you."

The child stamped her foot and jammed her balled fists against her hips. "They're dolls. Little girls are s'posed to play with dolls."

"You don't like dollies, sweetheart." Kaye soothed.

"I like these dolls. They're like…" She scrunched her face up. "…like zombies."

"Yeah, they creep me the fuck out." Kaye pulled out her cellphone to snap a photo to show her wife, then realized Faye couldn't see it. She snapped it anyway. She'd look at it and describe it in all its eerie detail to her spouse.

"Let's go." Jane held out her hand to the girl.

"No." She stamped her foot again. "I'm the boss of you, Jane. I want you to play dead dollies with me."

Kaye, used to dealing with the willful child, took a different approach. "You're supposed to get Jane to the drag queen boutique and make her buy a fancy dress that she'll hate to wear. I'm sure Jane would rather spend all day playing in the dirt than trying on frilly clothes. If you don't get her to the dress store, she wins."

It worked. With one last longing glance toward the graveyard of decapitated moppets, she grabbed Jane's hand and pulled her toward Bayview Walk. "No fun for you, Jane. You're going to get a dress that makes you look like a fairy fucking princess and you're going to hate it."

Jane feigned horror and then resignation, reluctantly shuffling toward the town center.

"Who do you think lives in that place?" Kaye asked.

"A serial killer, a misogynist, Jack the Ripper." Jane mused.

"I think…" Annaliese proclaimed. "It's a witch, like in Hansel and Gretel. But she's a fucked-up witch. She cooks children and eats them, but she doesn't like their brains, so she leaves them outside to rot on sticks."

The answer made Jane's hackles rise and she peered curiously at the small child who was happily swinging her hand as they made their way past Cherry's.

"Can we have lunch there?"

"Only if you like borscht." Jane answered.

"No. I want a burger." She pointed to a powder blue building next to The Ice Palace Hotel and Disco. The sign above the door read "Burger Queen."

"You just had breakfast." Kaye took the pointing hand in her own and kissed it. "Later, lovebug. Let's get Jane her frilly, spangly, pink polka-dot, princess gown first."

The girl's eyes narrowed. "With matching fuzzy pink fuck-me pumps."

Jane groaned, that was probably an accurate description of what she would find inside. She braced herself, sighed and opened to door to This Ol'Drag.

The shop's decor was straight out of Jane's worst nightmare. The walls and ceiling were painted a bright pink, half a shade lighter than the high-pile carpet underfoot.

"I feel like I just walked into a bottle of Pepto Bismol." Kaye groaned.

Racks of clothing cluttered the center of the room, trailing feathers and lace. Garish fabrics spilled from rolls, electric blue zebra print battling with nuclear orange leopard for most dizzying.

Lining each wall were racks of falsies, beige with deep cocoa nipples, fair and freckled tipped in pale rose, tear drop shaped and round, silicone and latex with adhesive tape or shoulder straps, from barely Bs to double Ds and beyond. Breasts lay haphazard on top of glass display counters and in a heap on the carpet. Nipples stared from every corner like the sightless pink eyes of lab rats.

Annaliese busied herself bouncing rubber mammaries like gelatinous beach balls. "Look, Gran, I can juggle."

"Nice. Your dad would faint if he saw that."

Jane stood in front of a modest cardboard display featuring a dozen plain beige briefs, by far the most understated garment in the shop.

"I need some panties. I can't believe these aren't bespangled and dripping rhinestones."

"Yeah, those are pretty damn boring. Even I wouldn't wear them and I'm seventy." Kaye joined her in front of the display.

"They're called 'My Secret Panty.' I guess the secret is that they're so fucking ugly." Jane picked up the smallest one and held it up to her hips, revealing the secret. The crotch opened exposing an anatomically correct labia, magenta inner lips protruded from the slit fabric like the lolling tongue of a thirsty heifer.

"Whoa! That's just wrong." Jane flung the briefs back onto the rack.

Kaye pulled out her phone and snapped a picture, laying the underpants just so to capture the realistic vulva. "Jane, what do you think these puppies cost?"

"No fucking idea. I get three pair of Hanes Her Way for ten bucks, so probably more for those. Maybe $20?"

"Ha! Try $125."

"You're shitting me!"

"Having fun, ladies? If you like the secret panties, we also carry full bodysuits in beige and black." A male voice startled them, causing Annaliese to drop the pair of enormous rubbery breasts she had been tossing.

A short, chubby man in khaki bermuda shorts and an I love NY T-shirt entered from a back room. "Ah, Detective Jane. Are you hot on the trail of serial sodomites?"

Jane peered at the little man through narrowed eyes, then grinned. "Butthole-Fly!"

"The one and only." He curtsied.

"Is this your shop?"

"Alas, it is not. I got a raise in my social security check this month so I am treating myself to a new kimono. I popped in for a fitting with Carmen Erecta. This is her shop."

"Is your name really Butthole?" Annaliese gaped in wonder at the dragless queen.

"It's my stage name."

"That's so cool."

"Thank you, my dear. Is this one yours, Jane, the fruit of your womb or did you just supply the batter and bake her in that lovely doctor you've been smooching on all over town?"

"Uh, neither. This is my friend Kaye and her granddaughter Annaliese."

"Charmed." He extended one smooth white hand and shook with Kaye and the child.

"So?"

"So, I need some clothes and Maura thought I should shop here because I'm tall." Jane blurted.

Butthole-Fly giggled and clapped his hands. "Oh, this is going to be so delicious. Carmen! Do come out, you have a customer."

Carmen Erecta was easily six foot five barefoot, but neared the seven foot mark with his Texas-style blonde bouffant wig. His face was fully made-up from artfully arched eyebrows to glossy red lipstick. He wore a pair of figure-hugging red pedal pushers and a black tank top, exposing well-muscled upper arms and strong shoulders. A yellow paper tape measure hung around his neck.

He ran an appraising eye over Kaye, then Jane and finally Annaliese. "Who's the customer?"

"Me." Jane stepped forward.

"Good. I thought it might be half-pint over there. We have a midget over at the Belvedere. He calls himself Honey Doo-Doo and struts around in Toddlers in Tiaras drag with a Miss Cherry Grove sash. He's a real diva, would scratch your eyes out if you copied his style."

"He's not always in drag. I saw him at the clothing-optional pool and he's hung like a horse." Butthole-Fly gestured, his pale hands held a foot and a half apart. "That thing all but hits the ground when he walks.

"Mmm-hmm." Carmen agreed. "I had to sew a custom strap into his panties so he could wrap it under and tie it behind his back."

"I'm not a midget, dipshit. I'm a child." Annaliese glared at the enormous blonde.

"I think _midget_ is an offensive term." Jane muttered, remembering her recent sensitivity training session. Maura would be proud of her.

"Please, sister, we're talking about a man who until last year called himself JonBenet Pansey and wore a rope around his neck as part of his outfit. He'd be the last person to be offended. You dykes are so politically correct."

"Humorless." Butthole-Fly added.

"I happen to be very funny." Jane rested a hand on her sternum.

"She is." Kaye agreed.

"Whatever." Carmen looked bored. "What are you in the market for?"

"Umm, a dress that I can wear out to dinner."

Carmen eyed the lean woman in front of her. "I don't work for women. You dykes should open your own store. You could call it Joyce Lezzies."

Jane's cheeks burned. "Fine. Go fuck yourself." She turned to walk out of the shop.

"Wait!" A huge hand sporting a delicate French manicure grasped her elbow. "I was pulling your leg and a very long leg it is. I'm just a bitchy old queen, don't mind me."

Jane stood on a stool while Carmen and Butthole-Fly buzzed around her, taking measurements.

"Inseam, 34 inches. I can do a lot with that. Waist, 25."

"I wish my waist were 25, even 35. Sweet lesbian Jesus, I'd settle for 45." Butthole-Fly sobbed.

"Are you writing this down, Myron?"

"Yes, yes. Don't get your panties in a knot, Charles."

"Don't call me that. Once I step on that ferry, Charles is dead and Carmen is reborn from his ashes, like a great rainbow-spangled Phoenix."

Kaye tried to keep her granddaughter occupied playing catch with a silicone C-cup. Annaliese had a good arm. A future softball player, Jane mused.

Carmen put down his measuring tape and snapped his fingers in impatience. His friend passed over the pink writing tablet where he had recorded every number. Carmen studied the sheet, then studied Jane.

"I'm thinking she could pull off Morticia Addams. She's tall and thin." He slowly circled the stool where Jane was now sitting. "I envision a form-fitting black mermaid gown with a train of inky tendrils trailing behind."

"I can see it." Butthole-Fly nodded. "We'd have to blow her hair out straight and she'd need a few props; a cigarette holder and a black cat."

"Try again." Jane vetoed the idea.

Butthole-Fly pursed his lips. "Elvira Mistress of Darkness?"

"No. She's too…" He gestured impatiently, looking for the right word. "…swarthy and not enough tit."

He paced the length of the shop, tapping his manicured fingers against his temple. Finally, he stopped, a predatory smile on his ruby lips. "Cher!" He exclaimed.

"Why can't I just be Jane?"

"Booor-ring." Butthole-Fly trilled.

"Cher might work; she has the deep voice. The question is; which Cher? I personally adore early '70s Cher; that Cherokee look from the Half Breed album." He cleared his throat and pitched his tenor down half an octave.

"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves We'd hear it from the people of the town. They'd call us gypsies, tramps and thieves. But every night all the men would come around and lay their money down."

He took a breath, but Carmen covered his mouth with a big hand and his voice was stifled.

"Then there's 1980s Cher with her big hair and fishnet body suit. Myron, if you start to sing 'Turn Back Time' I'll choke you."

The smaller man closed his mouth, biting back the "If" that was already floating in the air.

"I have twenty yards of fishnet in the back. We'd just need to add a modesty panel over her crotch and perhaps a stylized flower approaching, but not entirely covering her nipples. What color are they, dear?"

Jane flushed and stammered.

"Never mind. I assume they're dark. Pink nipples should be covered; they're shy, but brownies are a fashion accessory unto themselves."

Jane swallowed. "No exposed nipples."

"So tedious, these dykes. They wouldn't know fashion if it climbed up their leg and licked their pussy."

The two men cackled and Carmen jotted a few notes on his pad. "Cher it is, but era to be determined. Right now you look like _Silkwood_ Cher after a double shift in the Kerr-McGee plant, so anything I design will be an improvement."

"I should be insulted, but strangely I'm not."

"That's the power of camp." Carmen intoned.

"That's like gay sarcasm, right?"

"Yes and so much more. Camp is an attitude, poking fun at the ridiculousness of human existence. Aren't we all just bags of meat stuffed with shit and come, yet we strut around trying to look pretty."

"Amen." Butthole-Fly nodded. "I'd cross myself, but I'm a good Jewish boy from the Bronx."

Jane stood. "I also need some casual stuff to knock around the island in. You know, some cargo shorts and maybe a pair of khakis; play clothes."

"Play clothes? I don't think I've ever been asked to design those before. I suppose I could whip up something using fabric from my bedroom curtains like Fräulein Maria did in _The Sound of Music, _but I hardly think floral lederhosen would be a good look for you."

Butthole-Fly clapped his hands. "_Sound of Music_ drag. Oh, I love it." He took a deep breath and began to sing, dancing away from Carmen before he could be silenced.

_Dildos and butt plugs and bears in black leather._

_Boys who will tickle my ass with a feather._

_Fellatio, sodomy, men in g-strings._

_These are a few of my favorite things._

Carmen rolled her eyes, her oversized eyelashes waggling like warring spiders. "Really, Myron, must you ruin every beautiful show tune in the world?"

"Ruin? I improve them." He twirled and continued.

_Cross-dressing drag queens and men hung like stallions._

_Huge uncut foreskins on Greeks and Italians._

_Cavity searches and studded cock rings._

_These are a few of my favorite things._

He bowed, the perfect gentleman, to Annaliese and extended his hand. She took it, laughing wildly and the pair waltzed around the shop, knocking over a mannequin dressed in a red velvet ball gown.

"Rump bum bum, rump bum bum, rump bum bum," he hummed. "Can you feel the rhythm, little one? Waltz is in 3/4 time. Good, good. You're a natural."

He began to sing again as he spun the delighted girl through a rack of feathered boas.

_Deep throating rent boys who dance in gold cages._

_Tea dances, bath houses, toilets and rages._

_Clamps for my nipples and velvet sex swings._

_These are a few of my favorite things._

"Myron! She's a child." Carmen shouted, his large hands resting on ample hips.

Butthole-Fly waved him off, intent on finishing his song.

_When my cock droops._

_When gonorrhea stings._

_When I__'__m feeling sad._

_I simple remember my favorite things,_

_And then I don__'__t feel__…_

He held the note for a full half minute.

_So bad._

"Sing it again! Please!" Annaliese begged.

"Once is enough. I always like to leave my audience wanting more."

"That has never happened." Carmen deadpanned. "Any-hoo, I will work my magic and have something for you tomorrow evening, but no play clothes. Take the ferry to Sayville, there's a Walmart on Sunrise Highway. Carmen Erecta does not make cargo shorts and Who Farted t-shirts."

* * *

"I've been here four days now and I haven't seen the beach. It's literally one block from this house. Can you believe it?" Jane poured half a bottle of teriyaki marinade over the pair of marbled porterhouse steaks resting on a platter on the kitchen counter. She poked the meat with a fork and poured on the rest of the bottle, tossing the empty into the trash.

"I believe it." Faye put aside the potato she was scrubbing. "I lived in New York City almost my entire life and I've never visited the Statue of Liberty or the Stock Exchange or even the Empire State Building."

"Yeah, but there's a difference between being a local and a tourist. I'm a tourist here and when you choose to go on vacation in a beach town, you expect to see the beach."

"Why don't you and Maura take a walk to the ocean now? Kaye and I will prepare dinner. Take a bottle of wine and a blanket. Enjoy the sunset."

"I want to go to the beach. It's one of my favorite things." Annaliese waltzed around the kitchen, singing. "Doodoos and Butt bugs and sodomy sex swings…these are a few of my favorite things."

Kaye claimed it as a victory that the child had misremembered most of the song and hoped she would forget the rest by the end of their vacation.

"Nana, can you believe it? The man's name was Butthole."

"I find that very hard to believe, although your Gran assures me it is true."

"Pumpkin, those things in the song are Mr. Butthole's favorites. You should write your own song with your own favorite things."

"I like this one."

"Annaliese." Faye turned her sightless green gaze toward her granddaughter. "Take out your vocabulary journal and make me a list of your favorite things."

"I want to sing them."

"You may, but only after you write them down. Go on."

The girl pouted but listened, skipping up the stairs, crooning "Rump, bum, bum. Rump, bum, bum. Rump, bum, bum."

She returned a moment later, clutching her Hello Kitty notebook. "My favorite things by Annaliese Alexandra Capasso. The beach. Farts. Pizza. Christmas and spending time with Nana and Gran."

"Very nice. I especially like number five."

Maura appeared at Jane's side, her golden hair pulled back in a loose ponytail and her face scrubbed clean of makeup.

"You look gorgeous, baby."

"I don't know about that. I've completely forsaken my beauty ritual today, but I do feel at ease. Having Faye here has lifted a tremendous burden from my shoulders. My pulse has been a steady sixty all day, even with two emergencies."

"Two?"

"Yes. The hydromedusa sting, and right after you left Volga came in with a deep cut to her thumb. She was slicing beets to make borscht and…"

Maura's gaze fell upon the steaks, now floating in a brown pool of marinade. "Oh, Jane, those are Pat LaFrieda Prime Angus Porterhouse. All they need is a little salt and pepper."

"It's teriyaki, Maur. You're looking at it like it's diarrhea. What's so great about this Pat La Freaka?"

"LaFrieda Meats supply all the finest restaurants in New York." Faye explained. "Maura saw them on display in the grocery window when we walked into town. We forced you and Kaye to eat a healthy salad for dinner last night and neither of you complained, so we thought you earned a steak dinner."

"Not just a steak dinner, a LaFrieda steak dinner." Maura amended.

"What's the difference?"

"About $90 a pound."

"Oh shit. For that money, the steak should eat me instead of the other way around."

Kaye joined them. "It should eat us both and then hold us all night and read us poetry."

Maura busied herself pouring the excess teriyaki off into the sink and patting dry the steaks with a paper towel.

Jane gasped. "No! Maura, that teriyaki is $400 a bottle. It's hand made in small batches by Yoko Ono from her own tears."

Maura poked her in the ribs. "Nice recovery, detective."

"Speaking of detectives, Maura and I discovered a clue to your hot dog caper this afternoon."

"Really? Our doctors were playing detective, Kaye. What do you think of that?"

"Sounds sexy." Kaye reached for a tomato from the plate in front of her wife. Faye sensed the movement and swatted at her hand, but missed. Kaye looked chastened and placed the tomato back, patting her spouse's arm.

"What did you find?"

"We went to Burger Queen after the clinic closed…" Maura began.

"You had burgers for lunch and you made me eat a cucumber and turnip green sandwich? That's not cool, babe."

"We did not have burgers." Faye corrected. "We treated ourselves to a green tea, flax seed, and spirulina smoothie."

"Eww."

"Delicious and very high in both omega-3 and gamma linolenic acid."

"Delicious my ass. Spirulina tastes like the scum that I skim off the top of the koi pond in summer." Kaye groused.

Maura finished drying the steaks and sprinkled each with a miserly dose of kosher salt and a more generous helping of pepper which she ground in a heavy wood mill. "I think no harm was done."

"So…the clue." Jane prodded.

"Yes, we overheard another customer placing an order in Burger Queen while we waited for the barista to prepare our smoothies. Did you know that Burger Queen has a vegan menu?"

"And…" Jane motioned that she should get to the point.

"And someone ordered a soy whopper with tofu-cheese. He said the only meat he eats hangs between a man's thighs."

"Blech. I think I just vomited into my mouth."

"It was Denis, Jane."

"So?"

"Denis who won the Great Cock Gobble."

"Yeah, Denis the pool-fucker. So what?"

"Denis whose trophy was found on our doorstep. He's a vegan, Jane."

"So are lots of people. They don't know what they're missing."

Maura sighed. "Do your gumshoe thing, Jane."

"He's a vegan, so he didn't actually eat any hot dogs during the contest. But, we knew that. I was the only fool who stuffed my face with those cheap weenies. Everyone else just sucked them and tossed them to the dogs."

"Right. Faye and I did the gumshoe thing on our own today. We walked across to the Cherry Grove Grocery where I noticed the steaks in the window and when we went in to purchase them, I asked the counterman if he sells more steak or vegan soy products."

"Okay." A deep furrow creased Jane's brows as she tried to follow Maura's logic.

"He said he sells much more meat. In fact, only one person bought any soy meat substitutes this week. I asked who that was and I might have led him to believe that I wanted to talk with the person about nutrition and vitamin supplements. But it wasn't a lie, because I do plan to have that conversation when he comes to have his penis abrasions checked later in the week. I did not break out in hives."

"Denis bought the soy dogs?"

"Yes. The very evening before that unfortunate surprise was left on our porch Denis purchased a package of Hollymeade soy frankfurters and a jar of organic strawberry preserves."

"Ha!" Jane wrapped Maura in a crushing hug. "Good work, Maur. You're a freakin' genius."

"Yes. I am."

"So he planted the trophy and the fake amputated penis to….?" Kaye was trying to understand his motive.

"Foster seeds of division in the community." Faye explained.

"But what about V.U.L.V.A and those angry women who said they'd rip the trophy from his hands after the contest?"

"Maybe the trophy was left by the angry dykes and Denis left the bloody penis to make them look crazy," Kaye suggested.

Jane's phone pinged. She pulled it from her jean pocket and swiped the screen. "I guess we can ask them ourselves. My membership request to join Vagina's United has been accepted."

The phone pinged a second time.

"Someone named Peppermint Patty wants to know if I'm an alto or a soprano."

"You're definitely an alto, Jane."

"I don't think they're talking about singing, Maur." She blushed, turning the screen around so Maura could see the woman's profile picture, a pair of fleshy hips girded with a strap-on.

Maura raised a suggestive eyebrow. "You're still an alto, Jane, and I wouldn't want it any other way."

* * *

Jane spread the blanket on the tightly packed sand. The tide had gone out, leaving a smooth expanse of cream-colored beach in its wake, studded here and there with a tangle of olive seaweed or a broken shell. They were alone on this stretch of beach, though farther down in both directions, tiny figures dotted the sand, some lying on blankets, others walking in pairs close to the waterline. Maura had left her sandals behind and rolled up her pant legs. She was wading in the rolling surf, digging her toes into the cold wet sand, enjoying the sensation of the sea pulling under her feet. She turned toward Jane and laughed, the wind whipping her hair around her face and ruffling her gauzy blouse, exposing and hiding the bare skin of her midriff.

"Come in, Jane, the water's fine." She waved and laughed again.

Jane was captivated, Maura with the setting sun behind her, glowing like an angel, her golden hair set off like a corona framing her smiling face. She reached for her phone and snapped a picture before tossing it into Maura's sandal and jogging across the sand to take her fianceé into her arms.

They kissed, their lips infused with the joy of the moment, the taste of salt on their lips and tongues. Maura pressed herself fully against Jane, reveling in the feel of hard hipbones digging into the soft skin of her belly and strong thighs pressing back against her own.

"This is one of my favorite things." She purred into Jane's mouth.

"Mine too. Probably number one on the list."

Maura pushed in closer, wrapping her arms around Jane's neck, boosting herself up, so she could wrap her legs around her love's muscular waist and press her sex against her firm belly. The relentless undertow pulled at Jane's bare feet and she struggled against it, unbalanced by Maura's weight she toppled into the surf, bringing Maura down with her.

"Shit! It's cold."

Maura just laughed. "We could roll around and make out in the waves like that scene in _From Here to Eternity_."

"I'm game." Jane rolled over in the surf, covering the smaller woman with her body and kissed her again. Despite their desire and the crush of their bodies, it was cold and they both began to shiver.

Jane broke the kiss and stood, offering Maura her hand. Maura plucked the blanket from the sand and wrapped it around them.

"At least my pants have been washed. Now I can get another four days wear out of them."

Maura chuckled. "No luck at the drag queen boutique."

"Some. They're making me a Cher-inspired evening gown, but Carmen Erectra does not do beach casual."

"I see."

"Are you mad?"

"No. Your complete lack of pretense that carries over into your poor fashion sense is actually quite endearing…one of my favorite things."

"What are your other favorite things? Name five, just like Annaliese had to."

"About you or in general?"

"Both."

Maura thought a moment. "My favorite things in no particular order: your voice when you say my name, that growl; it drives me to distraction. Science; acquiring knowledge and fitting new information into the preexisting framework of my mind, adjusting to the new information, learning and growing every day. Cunnilingus, both giving and receiving."

Jane snorted and pulled her closer. "That's on my list too. C'mon, you need two more."

Maura kissed her neck. "Looking forward to spending the rest of my life with you, planning our future, the small things mostly; a lifetime of laughing over coffee in the morning and fighting over the hairdryer, falling asleep with your arms around me, sneaking a bite of your cheeseburger when you go to the bathroom at the Robber."

"I suspected you did that." Jane laughed against her hair. "One more."

"My work; bringing closure to families, speaking for those who can longer speak for themselves, preserving human dignity when all else has been taken away."

"That's a good list, Maur."

"And yours?"

"Your innocence. I love when we're watching a movie and you fall asleep with your head on my shoulder. When I wake you, you're all goofy and disoriented, completely unguarded. I think I love you most in those moments; I live for it. Being a cop, not just when I get the bastards, but the whole process of running down leads, building a case, I fuckin' love grilling someone in the interview room, being a role model, doing the right thing even when it's tough. Sunday dinner at my Ma's when we're all together and I'm just surrounded by love and craziness and a sense of belonging, especially now that you're there and part of my family. The sex; I love that I can please you and when you come…there's nothing better."

Maura laced their fingers together. "One more."

"The Boston Red Sox. I love those guys. I know their winning or losing doesn't put money in my pocket, but it matters. They blow a game, and I'm in the toilet. They win, and I'm dancing on a cloud."

Maura smiled, her dimples deepening. "I was waiting for a sports team. I wasn't sure if you'd pick the Sox or the Patriots."

"Patriots are number six."

Jane reached behind her in the sand. "Do you want some wine? It might warm us up, but I'm afraid we missed the sunset again."

The fingernail sliver of sun which had been hovering over the face of the water just a moment before had disappeared below the horizon, leaving a diffused amaranth haze over the ocean.

"That's twice this week that you distracted me with those delicious lips. Not that I mind, you're more beautiful than any sunset." Jane pressed another kiss to Maura's cool, damp temple.

"No wine. We should head back. I'm sure Kaye has those steaks charred to a perfect medium-rare."

"Good. Because I forgot to bring glasses. We'd have to swig it out of the bottle like a couple of hobos."

Maura smirked. "One does not swig a Clairette de Die."

Jane popped the cork and took a defiant swig, tilting her long neck back. Maura watched, amused as she coughed and sputtered, wine shooting out of her nose and dripping from her mouth.

"Those damn bubbles."

Maura salvaged the bottle which had been tossed to the sand as her choking fianceé struggled to breathe. She took a small, ladylike sip, the pink tip of her tongue darting across her lips catlike to capture an errant drop.

"Chugging a sparkling wine is never a good idea, Jane. It causes a rapid release of the trapped carbon dioxide gas suspended in the liquid. You've turned your upper gastric tract into the equivalent of a shaken can of soda."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I did.

Jane bent over to plant a kiss on her future wife's smiling lips, but an inch from Maura's expectant mouth she froze, her jaw dropped and a tremendous burp emerged, ruffling Maura's damp hair with its force.

"Sorry."

"No need to apologize, ructus is the body's most expedient way to release gas from the digestive tract. I was, in fact, expecting that."

Jane grinned. "If you're not offended, maybe we could have a burping contest at our wedding. I'm sure there will be a few Rizzolis flat on their backs, guzzling from the champagne fountain."

"I'll take it under consideration. Constance may give them rum for their money." Maura bent and picked up both pair of sandals, passing Jane her phone and the half empty bottle of fine Rhonish sparkling wine.

"A run for their money, Maur. Damn, I love when I can correct you. It doesn't happen too often."

"Why would someone give a run for money? Rum makes more sense as a equitable mercantile transaction."

Jane shrugged. "That makes as much sense as anything else. Now move your sexy ass up those steps before your million-dollar Pepe Le Pew steak is cooked to the consistency of my sandals."

"Pat LaFrieda."

"Whatever."

At the top of the beach stairs, Maura stopped to take in one last look at the ocean. The waves were rippling black lacquer under a blood orange sky; primal, otherworldly. Jane's arms snaked around her waist, her warm lips found the pulse point in her neck.

"What is it, baby?"

"The sky, the ocean. It's dark and beautiful and dangerous; like you."

"I'm not dangerous. I'm your trained puppy."

"Botticelli got it wrong, Jane."

"The blind Italian opera singer?"

"No. The artist, Sandro Botticelli. His painting, _The Birth of Venus_ hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Venus or Aphrodite was the goddess of love and beauty, sex and desire. The Greeks believed she rose fully formed from the sea after Cronos castrated Ouranos and threw his genitals into the Aegean."

"Whoa." Jane pulled her closer

"Botticelli's Venus is a pale, curvy blonde with a bored expression on her face, she does nothing to inspire lust. She stands on a scallop shell modestly covering her hairless pudenda with a lock of her own long hair. The sea behind her is placid and pale blue in bright daylight."

"So you think she should have been born at night?"

"Not full night, but in the gloaming; now, when the sky is most dramatic and the sea threatening. I imagine her looking like you with wild dark hair and a strong lean body, gloriously bushed. She wouldn't simper on a half shell, she'd stride warlike from the ocean, shaking sea water from her mane, black eyes flashing."

"Oh babe." Jane kissed her ear. "I wish we were alone or that I had fixed the squeaky bed frame because I want you so bad right now…or is it badly?"

"Bad is correct since 'to want' is not a verb that implies a direct action; it may be modified by an adjective."

"What if the wanting leads to a direct action?" Jane leaned in and captured Maura's lips in a hard kiss, her long fingers pushing aside sea-damp pants and panties in search of a warmer, wetter heat.

"Wheeeee!"

Their passion was interrupted by a whoop of joy behind them. "Out of my way, lesbians, I just hit the island and I'm going skinny dipping."

A pale, naked brunette in large glasses, strapped to her head with a yellow sports strap zipped by them at astonishing speed. She flew down the long flight of wood stairs leading to the beach. When she hit the sand she flipped into the air and did a series of cartwheels landing right at the waterline. She lifted her head to the half moon and howled before diving into the black waves.

Jane and Maura watched in amused astonishment. "Ming!"


	7. Chapter 7

Millie-Joyce Ming cut through the black water, sleek as a marlin, her pale arms flashing in the moonlight. Once she exhausted herself, she flipped onto her back and floated, a small white blot buoyed on the inky waves. She rested, allowing the powerful current to pull her away from shore.

Jane and Maura made their way down the wooden staircase to the beach, shivering under the damp sandy blanket wrapped around their shoulders. They picked up speed when they hit the sand, jogging toward the waterline where Ming had all but disappeared. Only the occasional glint of starlight twinkling off of the thick lenses of her glasses told her friends that she was still out there, bobbing on the choppy sea. Then she was gone.

"Oh, Jane, she's going to drown. We need to do something." Maura looked down the deserted beach. Cherry Grove had no lifeguards; signs were posted on every walkway that swimmers were on their own. The barrier island was home to some epically rough seas and the small community did not want to assume responsibility for failed rescue attempts.

Jane dropped the blanket and waded into the churning surf, her eyes scanning the dark sea.

Maura was at her side. "She may have fallen victim to a sea puss."

"Swallowed by a sea pussy? Knowing Ming, that's exactly how she'd want to go." Jane laughed nervously, fully aware her joke was not at all funny.

"Sea pusses are powerful funnel-like currents created by the tide sucking back through narrow gaps in a sand bar. They are very dangerous and Fire Island is famous for them; the feminist icon and journalist Margaret Fuller drowned here in 1850. Picture a giant vacuum with all of its energy concentrated in one small area."

Jane swallowed, imagining Ming, spiraling backwards through the sea tethered to an invisible current. "I'm going in, babe."

"No! If she's caught in a current, there's nothing you can do for her."

Jane wrenched her eyes from the ocean and allowed herself one long look at her love. Maura; her sea-damp hair blowing in the salty breeze, eyes wide with fear, white blouse molded to her curves, pale hand clutching Jane's arm, the diamond in her ring flashing in the moonlight.

The ring gave her pause; she had promised forever. She hesitated, meeting Maura's gaze, lost in the shifting palate of grey and green, copper and ochre.

"Maura." She sighed, unable to to pull away from those eyes and the tightening grip of the doctor's hand on her biceps.

"Jane, I'm fully prepared to render you unconscious if I need to."

"Wha…how?"

"I'm an expert in human anatomy with an IQ of 178 on the Weschler scale and 183 on the Stanford-Binet. I have my ways." Maura's face softened. "And I'm in love with you."

Jane's tense body sagged against Maura's smaller frame. Her muscles still twitched with unspent adrenalin, her nerves rapidly firing to prepare her body for an icy plunge and desperate race through treacherous waters although her heart had already given in to Maura's pleas.

"So we just let a woman drown?" She pulled away, but Maura wrapped strong arms around her waist and drew her close again.

"Hey! Who's drowning?" A familiar voice called.

Ming lay on the wet sand, her arms casually folded behind her head as waves broke over her lower limbs.

"Millie-Joyce!" Maura was instantly at her side, kneeling in the surf to examine the laughing woman, her nervous hands fluttering across the tennis legend's bare chest and then finding their way to her neck where she counted a strong, steady pulse.

"I think I have a little cramp in my groin, if you'd like to rub it…not too hard. Tight circles if you please."

Maura's hand moved automatically toward the requested area, only to be pulled away roughly by Jane.

"You're a dog, Ming."

"Jane and Maura, how good it is to see you both."

She leapt to her feet, powerful thigh muscles tightening and propelling her straight up. She wrapped both women in a crushing hug.

"We thought you had drowned. It's dangerous and just plain stupid to swim that far out, especially at night."

Millie-Joyce hugged them tighter still then released. "Dangerous and stupid…yes, so is hitting on veiled women in Dubai, but I do it all the time and have great success." She winked. "You never know what you're going to get, but it's all good."

Jane picked up their discarded beach blanket and offered it to the naked woman.

"No thanks, Jane. This is how nature meant me to be, sleek and nude, stiff nipples pointing in the breeze. If I could have hit the courts naked, I would have won a fortieth grand slam title."

She pinched her own hard nipples. "This is proof that women are superior to men. Our parts grow in the cold and theirs shrink down to nothing."

Maura frowned. "That's not entirely true. Erectile tissue in the areola, particularly the Montgomery glands draw together in the cold, projecting the nipple outward. But if you would examine your labia, you'd find that your clitoris has withdrawn into the clitoral hood much as the glans penis will withdraw…"

"Ugh. No penises, Maura, I'm on vacation." Ming took off her glasses and huffed on the lenses, wiping them on the proffered blanket.

"Where are you staying?"

Ming smiled and pointed at a large chalet overlooking the ocean, almost directly behind them. A pair of blond figures could be seen, entwined on a wooden balcony that ran the entire length of the home, backlit by bright lighting within.

Jane whistled. "Wow. Now that's a beach house."

"Yes, that's _Swing Both Ways_. It's owned by the Women's Tennis Federation. We use it to entertain donors during the summer months. Those of us who bring in the most money get to use it for a week as a bonus. This is Waffles's week. My week starts Saturday, but she doesn't mind. She's leaving a day early; her girl du jour wants to see some Broadway show."

"Hey Waffles!" Ming cupped her hands and her voice carried over the dunes, despite the crashing waves. "Get a room."

The pair on the balcony were still locked in an embrace, hands roving in what appeared to be an intense make-out session. They stopped, and the larger figure approached the railing, cupped her hands and shouted back. "Put some clothes on, Ming. You're scaring the fish."

Jane recognized the voice from countless hours dozing with ESPN playing on her television; high-pitched and nasal, slightly tinted with the accents of her Czech homeland.

"That's Martina Navratilova!"

"Yeah, that's Waffles." Ming nodded.

"Waffles as in, equivocating? Vacillating between two diametrically opposed ideas?" Maura asked.

"No. Waffles as in the breakfast pastries you buy frozen and pop in your toaster. Repulsively delicious story behind that name, but if I told you, I'd have to kill you or Waffles would strangle me with those Virginia ham forearms." Ming giggled. "Let's just say it involves breakfast at Wimbledon, a very aroused girlfriend and a lack of maple syrup in the cupboard."

"I don't understand." Maura drew her brows together.

"I think I do." Jane's nose wrinkled.

Maura shrugged. "Come back to our house for dinner. Faye and Kaye are here. We're going to have a barbecue."

"Faye and Kaye! Awesome. I'll catch up with you later. I have dinner plans."

"Are you going out with Waff…um, Martina?"

"Ha! I'm going to Cherry's to eat borscht and hit on those two sexy bartenders, Masha and Pasha or Jana and Lana…"

"Olga and Volga."

"Right. I'm going to make a Ming sandwich smeared between those two Slavic hotties. I've been trying to bed them for the past three summers. I feel lucky tonight. The one with the beauty mark winked at me when I got off of the ferry."

"That's Volga." Maura confided, resting her finger on her own nose.

"I heard she was a gymnast back in Russia." Ming's eyes grew dreamy behind her fogged lenses. "I bet she still has moves. I'd like to do some floor exercises with her, put her through a full set of rhythmic gymnastics, have her vault through the air and land on my crotch, tumble me on the mat, flip around those uneven bars and stick a landing on my face, swing from my titties like Nadia Comaneci on the still rings. She can mount me and ride me like a pommel horse."

"Pommel horses are exclusively used in men's gymnastics." Maura corrected, but Ming wasn't listening. Her eyes were closed and she gnawed at her lower lip in anticipation.

"I need a cold shower or another cold swim." Ming danced backwards in the sand. "Come to Cherry's after dinner; it's swinging '70s karaoke night. Wear something sexy." She grinned and dove back into the sea.

* * *

"What are you wearing, Jane?" Maura stepped away from the mirror, dabbing at her seashell pink lipstick with a tissue.

"Um, it's '70s night…so I thought I could borrow something from Faye or Kaye. They're in their '70s."

The doctor was not amused. "Traveling with you is very taxing. I have to rearrange my entire wardrobe to accommodate you. Coming up with one historically viable outfit was difficult enough, but two…"

"Babe, you brought enough clothes to dress every drag queen in the Belvedere. Just pull out something and I'll wear it. I won't even complain if it itches or gives me a wedgie."

Maura pursed her lips and opened the large wardrobe filled with clothing on black velvet hangers, each spaced exactly a centimeter apart.

"Maura…" Jane crossed the room and wrapped her arms around the frowning woman who was raking through her wardrobe, examining and rejecting item after item.

"I love you. You're beautiful and…and coordinated and you make me a better woman…and a better dresser."

Maura sighed, relaxing for a moment into her fiancée's arms, allowing the dark woman to nuzzle her neck. "What do you think of when you hear 1970s fashion?"

Jane shrugged. "My mother in bell-bottoms and an "Up with People" T-shirt. My Pop in a brown leisure suit. Nothing good."

"I think Halston and Von Furstenburg, neither of which I thought to pack."

"What a shame."

"I know. I do have this one wrap dress, but it's by Melinda Eng, and she didn't begin designing until the mid 1990s." Maura pulled a rather plain black cocktail dress from the closet.

"Perfect. I'll take it. It matches my flip-flops."

"It's not perfect. Even my outfit is wrong. This is Elie Tahari, who was around in the 1970s; he opened a small boutique in New York in 1974, but his designs have evolved drastically over the past forty years." She examined the outfit, tilting her head to the left and then the right. "Actually, the style of the palazzo pants paired with a color block blouse does have a vaguely disco era feel to it."

"Your outfit is lovely, Maur. It's classic. No one will know it isn't an original Hilton Von Hindenburg made in 1977." Jane nipped a bare earlobe and released the doctor's waist, taking the black cocktail dress from her hands.

"I'll know." Maura whispered. "And the drag queens will know."

"Please, you give them too much credit. They'll all be wearing dresses sewn in 2014 by Carmen Erecta over beige panties with rubber lady parts glued into them."

"Hubba hubba!" Kaye whistled as the pair descended the stairs to the small living room. "You two look gorgeous. Babe, they could be in one of those magazines you used to have in your office waiting room and get this, Jane is wearing a dress and Maura's in pants."

"Ah! Good for you, Maura. What are you wearing?"

Maura described their outfits in excruciating detail, down to the graphite beading and dyed faux mink straps of her Brunello Cucinelli sandals. She passed over Jane's black flip-flips, bought from the dollar store in Roxbury.

"Oh, fine Italian footwear. How I miss tottering about in a pair of platform sandals. I had quite the shoe collection in my day. When Kaye was courting me, I'd change in the locker room at the hospital and we'd go to the Copacabana on 47th Street. We would dance all night, smooch a bit in her car, and then she'd drop me back at Lenox Hill for my next shift."

"Those were the days." Kaye agreed. "Have fun. Give Ming a hug from us and a purple nurple."

"No way, she'd think that was foreplay. I'm not going anywhere near Ming's mammaries." Jane grinned. "Do you want me to carry the kid to bed before we go?"

Annaliese had passed out with her head on her Nana's lap, the very picture of innocence.

"Nah. I got it. She's light as a feather. We enjoy her most when she's like this."

* * *

The red Christmas lights strung along the covered walkway leading to Cherry's pulsed in time to the thrumming disco music inside. A dance version of Helen Reddy's _I Am Woman_ was broadcast to a sad group of day trippers waiting on the pier for the ferry back to their bland lives. A drunk man in a kilt and bobby socks, Catholic school drag, teetered on the edge of the pier, wind-milled his arms and fell over, landing on his rear rather than in the bay.

"My Pop always said that God protects drunks and fools."

"That's a paraphrase of an old French proverb, 'Dieu aide à trois sortes de personnes: aux fous, aux enfants, et aux ivrogenes.'" Maura grasped her hand. "A teacher at my boarding school always said it when one of my classmates would climb out of the window and shimmy down the side of the building to meet boys in town. They would inevitably be caught sneaking back in, but that no one ever fell and broke a limb or worse is quite extraordinary."

"You never snuck out to meet boys?"

"Never."

"Good. The thought of some pimple-faced teenager groping at your bra straps makes me want to spit."

"Jane, that was almost thirty years ago. No one groped at my bra straps until college, and even then it was rare."

Jane laced their fingers together tighter. "Those bra straps are mine along with everything they hold up."

"Absolutely." Maura smiled, glancing at the large diamond on her left hand. "We can put that in our vows, Jane. I shall plight thee my troth along with all my worldly goods and exclusive access to my brassiere and its contents."

"I like it. You're developing a sense of humor living with me, doctor. You'll have them in stitches at our fiftieth anniversary party in the nursing home."

"I hope so." Maura cast a silent prayer into the universe that she and Jane would live a long life together.

Jane squeezed her hand. "You ready to boogie?"

"I don't know."

"To dance, Maura. Are you ready to enter the night club and move rhythmically across the dance floor?"

"Yes. That I can do."

They were met in the passageway by a tall man in a Wonder Woman costume. He barred their entry with crossed forearms bearing the superhero's star emblazoned gold cuffs.

"Halt!" He squealed. "Let me get my magic lasso and tie you up. I'm going to tickle you until you give me the name of your surgeon. I'm not transitioning, but I'd love to have a more feminine jaw line."

"I'm not a surgeon. I'm a forensic pathologist." Maura explained, reaching for her purse. "I didn't realize there was an entrance fee."

"Not you, sister. I know a real pair of tits when I see them."

"Me?" Jane lay an astonished hand on her sternum. "I'm a woman! And my tits are real; they may not be voluptuous, but they're mine."

"Oh, sorry." He stepped aside. "You're very tall. I thought you were the loveliest drag queen I've ever laid eyes on. Take it as a compliment."

"Okay…see Maura, that's why I should never wear dresses and make up. If I was wearing my jean shorts and a tee shirt, people would know I'm just a plain old dyke."

Maura sighed. "No one outside of Cherry Grove would ever mistake you for a drag queen. Your frame is much too delicate; you're clearly a woman. I like you in a dress; sometimes I want to be able to run my hands up your thigh and ogle your cleavage."

"Fair enough." Jane pulled aside the deep V of her neckline. "Ogle away."

"Who's ogling?" Millie-Joyce appeared behind them, sipping a pinkish cocktail through an enormous looping straw. "There's only one thing worth ogling and that's tatas. You can admire an ass, ponder a pussy, check out a calf, think on a thigh, honor a hand, but when it comes to ogling, it's breastices all the way. Ming is mad for mammaries; I marvel at them and moon over them. Love me some sweet titty meat, yes I do."

She passed Maura her drink and strutted in front of the bar, chanting, "The bigger, the better, the tighter the sweater. Oh yeah. Oh yeah."

Maura snorted, covering her unladylike laugh with a deep slurping sip of Ming's pink drink. "Oh, Millie-Joyce, this is delicious. What is it?"

"Sex on the beach, which is what I plan on doing later with that one." She pointed to the chubby Russian bartender who winked and grinned, showing off a glint of gold tooth far back in her mouth."

"That's Olga." Maura frowned. "I thought you wanted Volga to sit on your face."

"I want them both!" Ming's eyes were wild, greatly magnified behind her thick lenses, resembling the rounded blue orbs of robin's eggs. "I'm going to serve them and I don't mean on a tennis court. Advantage Ming."

Maura leaned closer to shout in her friend's ear over the latest song, a terrible rendition of Diana Ross's "Love Hangover."

"Olga is a pianist. I imagine she has very strong and skilled fingers."

Ming squealed with glee. "I'll let you know tomorrow after I roll her in the sand and she plays chopsticks on my whoo-ha." She took off her glasses and wiped them on the lapel of her jacket. "It's so good to see you both. Let me buy you a drink."

"I'll have a sex on the beach." Maura took another sip of Ming's drink and passed it back, licking at her lips. "Yummy."

"Beer, Jane?"

"Yup."

Millie-Joyce dropped a fifty on the bar and turned back to her friends. "You're looking very feminine, Jane. I might even hit on you if we were strangers in a night club. Maura, you look lovely as usual."

"Thank you, Millie-Joyce. You look very…" Maura struggled for the right word. "…rakish, debonair in a 1970s sort of way."

"This suit belonged to John Travolta. It's one of three that he wore while filming _Saturday Night Fever. _I had it tailored to fit me."

"Cool. I love that movie." Jane hesitated, then reached out and touched the white polyester fabric of Ming's lapel. "Did you buy it on Ebay?"

"I won it from John at a charity tennis tournament in Palm Springs. He's pretty good, but no match for Ming. If I lost, I had to let him fuck me in the ass."

Jane smirked. "Maybe he threw the game."

The tennis legend guffawed, slapping her white polyester clad thigh. "You're funny, Jane, but also no match for Ming."

It was Volga who lined their drinks up on the bar. "Hello doctor and hot dog girl! You are druzya with Millushka?"

"Da. Ochen khoroshiya druzya." Maura nodded, reaching for her drink.

Volga leered at the doctor and lifted her meaty fists into the air. She made a circle with her left thumb and forefinger and pierced it again and again with her right forefinger, the universal symbol for fucking. Thinking better of it, she turned her finger penis into a circular vagina and mashed the two circles together.

"No, no, Volga, not that close of friends."

"Vy not? She is very sexual voman." She blew a kiss at Millie-Joyce who caught it in mid-air and rubbed it into her crotch.

"More borscht, lapochka?"

"Only if I can drink it from your…" She turned to Maura. "How do you say 'ginormous breasts' in Russian?"

"Bolshaya grud."

"…from your bolshaya grud." Millie-Joyce finished, pointing at the fleshy white cleavage spilling over a black v-neck tee emblazoned with the Cherry's logo.

Volga looked over her shoulder; Olga was on the other side of the bar, serving up shots to three huge bearded men in Girl Scout uniforms; her back was turned. She nodded briskly to Millie-Joyce then dribbled a spoonful of borscht into her cleavage. Ming sprung up onto the bar and lapped it up.

"Can I have seconds?"

"Maybe later." She chucked the tennis legend under the chin and hustled off to wait on the pair of Diana Ross drag queens who had just finished ruining "Love Hangover."

Butthole-Fly took the stage. "Good evening, bitches. Welcome to the seventies. I see most of you are old enough to remember that sweet decade. In fact, some of you old queens can probably remember the 1870s; anyone in Scarlett O'Hara drag here?" He shielded his eyes and scanned the crowd.

"Oh, hello Jane. How's your tummy? Did you pass all those hot dogs?"

Jane waved and everyone cheered good-naturedly for her.

Butthole-Fly dabbed at his sweating forehead with a cocktail napkin and continued. "Accompanying Jane is our own town doctor. Doctor Isles will be examining assholes tomorrow. Now I know most of you personally and you're all assholes…" He paused a beat, waiting for applause, which was given grudgingly. "…any-hoo, stop by Belly Acres on Doctor's Walk tomorrow between seven and one to have your prostates checked. Nobody likes a limp dick and that's what you get with prostate cancer…E.D. Erectile Dysfunction," he trilled, his red lips forming a perfect O of despair against his white kabuki makeup.

"You're digging in guys' butts tomorrow?" Jane asked, her nose wrinkled in disgust.

Maura sighed. "I guess so. D'Fwan has been suggesting it since my first day here. I never agreed, but he must have taken it upon himself to declare Saturday prostate screening day."

Jane finished her beer and let out a muted burp. "Boy am I glad I'm not a doctor. Another drink, babe?"

Maura glanced at her nearly empty glass. "Sure. Where's Millie-Joyce?"

Jane glanced about, but their friend was gone. Volga and Olga were still behind the bar, so she hadn't gotten lucky on that front, yet. A moment later she back flipped onto the stage from behind a set of speakers, landing in a split at Butthole-Fly's feet. The startled man jumped back, nearly losing his balance in his high wooden sandals. He recovered quickly, fanning himself with his ornately painted ogi.

"Hopping homosexuals!" He panted. "I was just about to sing _It__'__s Raining Men _and a lesbian drops from the heavens. "

"Not just any lesbian, Millie-Joyce Ming, five-time Wimbledon singles champion." A woman's voice shouted from the back of the room.

Ming jumped to her feet. "I won Wimbledon six times, but who's counting."

"Sing something, Ming!" The same voice shouted.

"Sing Ming! Sing Ming! Sing Ming!" Soon the entire bar was howling in unison, begging the tennis legend to grace them with a song.

Ming whispered something in Butthole-Fly's ear and he nodded vigorously, punching in a code on his Karaoke machine. The music started and she hooked her thumbs into her white polyester belt loops and began to sing, "Macho, macho man. Ming's gotta be a macho man…"

Her voice was high-pitched and off key, but the crowd loved it. A group of women made their way to the front of the stage, pumping their fists in time to the music.

"Body, it's so hot, Ming's body, Body, love to pop Ming's body, Body, love to please Ming's Body, Body, don't you tease Ming's body, Body, you'll adore Ming's body, Body, come explore Ming's body… Ladies! Show me how macho you are. Take off your shirts and flex your titties!"

Everyone listened; a dozen blouses and t-shirts flew through the air followed by a dozen bras. Swept up by the fervor and two Sex on the Beaches poured by Volga's heavy hand, Maura shrugged out of her Tahari blouse and unclasped her yellow brassiere.

"Are you insane?" Jane grasped the fluttering lemon straps and quickly rehooked them. "Are you really going to jiggle _my_ breasts in Ming's face? Really?"

Maura flushed. "Oh, Jane, I don't know what came over me." She quickly slipped back into her blouse.

The song ended and Ming skipped from the stage. Strutting down the line of sweaty women, she bent and kissed each bare breast, suckling a nipple of those who allowed it.

"That would have been you." Jane pointed at the display.

Maura groaned and covered her face.

Butthole-Fly reclaimed the microphone. "Well, Millie-Joyce, that certainly was the most interesting karaoke performance I've witnessed in my four hundred years on Cherry Grove."

Ming howled and thumped her chest, sprinting around the crowded room in a victory lap. "Volga! Olga! Shots for everyone on me." She screamed.

The bartenders scanned the room, chattering in rapid-fire Russian.

"They're calculating what crap they can mix together for the least money." Shirley Temple groused from Jane's left. "I bet they serve up borscht shots with an eyedropper full of Georgi in each."

"You wanting vodka, Millushka?" Volga asked, as the tennis legend completed her lap and came to a halt in front of the bar, bouncing up and down in place.

"I want…" Millie-Joyce thought for a moment. "Buttery nipples!"

"Buttery nipples Russian style!" Olga declared.

"Like I predicted, borscht and cheap vodka." Shirley Temple deadpanned.

"Excuse me, Olga, but what makes a buttery nipple especially Russian?" Maura asked.

"Russian nipple is squeezed between two shots of vodka; Stolichnaya, nipple, Stolichnaya."

"Stoli, nipple, Stoli! Stoli, nipple, Stoli!" The crowd started to chant.

"We having prizes!" Volga shouted above the cheers. "Kukla for who drinks shots most sexy way."

Jane finished her second beer and debated ordering a third. Beer, beer, Stoli, buttery nipple, Stoli was a surefire recipe for an upset stomach. The last time she did shots was in March when the team nailed a real shitbag who had killed his girlfriend on her birthday then tried to pin it on her Down's syndrome son. They made the arrest on St. Patrick's Day, so Sean had insisted they celebrate with Jamison's; one shot for each year of the dead woman's life; she'd been 36, dividing that between Korsak, Frost, Sean, and herself, it was still nine shots a piece. The bartender had to call Maura to drive them all home. Jane had vomited out the window of the Prius and spent the rest of the night lying on the cool tile floor of the bathroom with the doctor watching over her from her sentry post on the toilet seat. She would hate to barf up Maura's hundred dollar Frida la Pida steak; best to skip this contest.

"Are you entering the contest, Jane? You seem to have a penchant for gluttony."

Jane's reverie was interrupted by the arrival of her Fairy Godfathers, adorable in matching purple track suits. Miss Pussy was draped over Joan's shoulder in a lilac Gayby t-shirt.

"Nah, I think I'm going to skip this one. I'm still recovering from the hot dogs."

"Wise choice. Dennis always wins every contest any way. He's very limber."

"The fuck does that have to do with drinking shots?'

"You'll see." Barbara arched a grey eyebrow. "How can I put it delicately, Joan dear?"

"He grills his own hot dog? No, that's not very delicate, is it?"

Maura pointed across the room, where the infamous Dennis, their number one suspect in the case of the strawberry penis, was stripping down to his underpants.

"He seems to be undressing. Maybe I'll take this opportunity to examine his wounds."

"In the middle of a bar?"

Maura shrugged. "It will save him a trip to the office."

"Oh, Honey…" Joan smirked. "He'll be at your office tomorrow for a prostate exam. Knowing Dennis, he'll be first on line."

"Can I buy a drink for my fairy godfathers?" Jane asked.

"Sure. We'll have a pair of dirty martinis and a Dewar's, no ice, for Miss Pussy."

Olga and Volga were sweating with exertion; Olga lined up rows of three plastic shot glasses across one side of the bar while Volga, a bottle of Stolichnaya in each hand filled the two outer glasses, moving quickly down the line without spilling a drop. Ming had hopped over the bar and was mixing Bailey's Irish Cream with Butterscotch Schapps in an enormous aluminum shaker. She disappeared below the lip of the bar for a moment then popped back up, giggling.

"I added a special ingredient."

"I don't think I want to know what it is." Jane wrinkled her nose.

"I dipped my nannettes into the brew for good luck. Pussy power!" She offered her fist and Jane reluctantly bumped it.

"You sure you didn't dip your pussy into it?"

"I'm sure, but I can if you want me to."

"No, but you can make me two dirty martinis and a Dewar's."

"Gotcha."

The assembly line finished, Volga vaulted onto the bar with a grace that belied her 200-pound frame. "First ve drink, next ve compete!"

Butthole-Fly and the three bear Girl Scouts set about passing out shot glasses.

"Milluska, you toast?"

Millie-Joyce flipped herself onto the bar next to the object of her lust. She lifted the first shot, pure Russian vodka. "I defer to you, Volga."

Volga bowed her head and thought for a moment. "Чтобы столы ломались от изобилия, а кровати – от любви!"

Everyone drank though not a soul, save Maura, had any idea what they were drinking to.

"What did she say?" Jane whispered.

"May our tables break from abundance and our beds from love. Our bed may do just that if you don't tighten that frame soon."

Millie-Joyce lifted the buttery nipple shot. "I propose a toast to all gay men. May you continue to fuck each other and leave all the ladies to Ming!"

The bar erupted in shouts and whistles, catcalls and screams of "Miiiiiiing!"

Butthole-Fly, back on stage, picked up the microphone. "Millie-Joyce, I think I speak for every queen in Cherry Grove when I say you can have them all."

Ming bowed to more frenzied cheering. "I plan to do just that, my friend."

"Last shot, come on! I'm ready to compete." Dennis shouted when the applause died down. "I can't keep this erection indefinitely."

"He shouldn't be having an erection at all." Maura confided. "He isn't healed."

"Come on up here, Olga, give the last toast." Ming offered her hand and with great effort, and the help of Jane and Maura who stood behind her and pushed, managed to pull the heavy woman on top of the bar.

"Well I got what I wanted. I'm sandwiched between these two Slavic hotties." Ming grinned. "It could only be better if we were all naked…and covered in chocolate…in a dildo factory."

Volga laughed coquettishly and pinched Ming's ass. Olga, more direct, pinched her nipple.

"Friends…" Olga raised the last glass. "Volga and I came here with nothing; defectors, outcasts. Here we found a community, prosperity, happiness. Tonight I drink to America."

"To America!" Everyone echoed.

Butthole-Fly raised the microphone and sang an _a cappella_ version of "God Bless America." He didn't substitute a single word; the tears smearing his kabuki make up attested to his sincerity.

When he was finished, the crowd stood in silence for a moment, everyone feeling connected and at peace. In front of the stage, a dozen topless lesbians swayed arm in arm with Carmen Erecta and the Diana Ross impersonators, the three bears lifted Olga and Volga down from the bar top, Honey Doo Doo hugged the tall man in Wonder Woman drag, Barbara and Joan wrapped their arms around Jane and Maura and Ming poured an extra glass of scotch for Miss Pussy and a double for herself.

"Does anyone still feel like competing or should we just sing 'Kumbaya' and go home?" Butthole-Fly asked.

"I want to compete!" Dennis shouted. "Ming, you and me!"

"No thanks, fella. I'm good where I am." Ming was still behind the bar, leisurely drinking her scotch while Volga and Olga took turns rubbing her shoulders and feeding her spoonfuls of borscht. "Jane, I defer to you."

"To her!" Dennis screeched. "I beat her in the Great Cock Gobble. She's no competition for me."

Maura squeezed Jane's hand. "Let it go, baby."

"I'm good, Maur. He can't provoke me, fuckin' tofu eating pool-fucker."

"What do you say, Detective Jane?" Butthole-Fly asked.

"Let him have the Ku Klux. I have the greatest prize any person could ask for." She wrapped an arm around Maura's waist and kissed the top of her head. "I'd just like someone to sing a nice slow song so I can dance with my fianceé."

"Awww…." The crowd cooed in unison.

"You all suck!" Dennis picked up his discarded clothing and marched out of the bar, his bruised erect penis pointing the way.

"Here, Dennis, take your Kukla." Olga offered a hand-painted wooden Matryoshka doll to the sour-faced man as he passed.

"Give it to Jane. She can put it on her shelf next to my other trophy."

"Jane?" Olga offered the doll. "Please take it. Volga and I make these ourselves, a hobby."

Jane took the kukla from the bartender's hands. "Thank you, it's lovely."

D'Fwan climbed onto the stage, elegant in a simple black cocktail dress. He conferred with Butthole-Fly and the two consulted a dog-eared notebook, flipping through the pages until they came to an accord.

Butthole-Fly cued the music and the naughty nurse approached the microphone. "Here's some Marvin Gaye for all my gay brothers and sisters. I dedicate this song to Dr. Isles and her partner, Jane, two of the finest people I've ever met who are so very much in love. Come on ladies, here's your slow song…."

He closed his eyes and his rich baritone filled the room, like the thickest honey poured through silk.

_I've been really tryin', baby__  
__Tryin' to hold back these feeling for so long__  
__And if you feel, like I feel, baby__  
__Then come on, oh come on_

_Let__'__s get it on, oh baby__…__Let__'__s get it on._

Maura took Jane's hand and led her onto the dance floor. She rested her right hand on Jane's hip, pulling her close, and placed Jane's right hand on her heart, covering it with her left. They began to sway together.

"Shouldn't I lead, Maura? I'm taller and I'm…well…kinda the guy in this relationship."

Maura shook her head. "Neither of us is a guy, Jane. You're a woman and I'm a woman. Sometimes you lead and I follow, other times I lead. You may be taller, but I'm the better dancer, so follow me, love."

Jane nodded, resting her head on top of Maura's.

D'Fwan finished the song and began another, Barry White's "Walking in the Rain with the One I Love." Jane and Maura could have been alone in the crowded bar, molded together and moving to the sweet Motown music. They didn't notice when Butthole-Fly joined D'Fwan for a poignant duet of Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye's "You are Everything."

They separated only when the Wonder Woman impersonator tapped Jane on the shoulder. "I think your friend has had enough. Maybe you should take her home."

Ming was epically drunk; all of her fancy footwork had deserted her. She shambled, pigeon-toed, muttering, "boobies, boobies, boobies."

"Millie-Joyce, you need to go home." Jane picked up John Travolta's white polyester jacket from the floor and draped it over her arm. "C'mon Ming, we'll walk you back, make sure you're safely tucked in for the night."

"No! I have a double date with Vodka and Odka."

"Volga and Olga went home an hour ago. Look, there's one bartender left, the old guy with the bad toupee."

Ming squinted at the man. "No, that's Vodka. See her beauty mark." She attempted to tap her nose, but missed.

"That's not a beauty mark, Millie-Joyce, you have a brown smudge on your glasses." Maura reached up and wiped the lens with a cocktail napkin. "See, all gone. No melanocytic nevus."

"Oh, now I see. It's not Vodka."

"No."

"It's Odka."

"Ming, tomorrow's another day. Let's go."

Jane and Maura each took an arm and together they dragged her from the bar.

At the front door of _Swings Both Ways _Maura shrugged out from under Millie-Joyce's arm, leaving Jane to support the tennis legend's weight alone.

"Jesus, Ming, you have two good legs. Stand on them."

Millie-Joyce shifted, let out a powerful fart and giggled. "That was an ace."

"Eww. Gross. That smells like borscht."

Maura knocked firmly and stepped back. There was no sound of movement within. "Maybe we should bring her back to our house."

"No way. Do you want to wake up with Ming drooling on your boobs tomorrow morning?"

"No. That is a privilege that I reserve solely for you."

"Booooooobs." Ming muttered, wiggling her fingers in anticipation.

Maura knocked again, louder. A chain rattled within and the door swung open. The doctor found herself face to face with a very annoyed Martina Navratilova. The tennis champion stood glaring in her doorway wearing a white tank and panties, thin blonde hair rumpled and standing on end.

Maura smiled sweetly. "Dobrý večer. Jmenuji se Maura."

Martina was startled. She ran a hand through her hair and stood straighter. She was expecting a drunk Ming and was met instead by a beautiful woman speaking flawless Czech.

"Hello, Maura." Martina crossed her powerful arms over her chest, acutely aware of her stiffening nipples under the thin cotton of her undershirt.

"Potřebuji vaši pomoc." Maura explained.

"You need my help. Of course…but, I can tell by your accent that you're American. I do speak fluent English."

"Oh…I'm sorry. It's just that I so rarely get to practice my Czech. I sing along to _Rusalka_, but it's not the same. "

"You sing along to Dvořák?"

"Yes. In all fairness, _V__ě__c Makropulos_ is my favorite Czech language opera, but Janáček isn't as melodic. I have poor pitch, but I can muddle through if there is a strong melody."

"Aha. So, Maura…is this a singing telegram? Are you going to woo me with Rusalka's Hymn to the Moon?"

Maura bit her lip. "No, as I said, I…we need your help."

Jane stepped into the light, dragging a babbling Ming. "Booobs. Buh-buh-buh-boobs."

"This is my partner, Jane."

Martina sighed, equally disappointed by the sight of her intoxicated friend and the beautiful stranger's girlfriend.

"Do you want me to carry her inside?" Jane asked.

"No. I've got it." Martina flexed her massive biceps and easily lifted the older woman across her shoulders.

She paused in the doorway. "Děkuji, Maura. Dobrou noc."

Maura waved, linking her arm through Jane's. "Rádo se stalo. Dobrou noc, Martina."

Jane rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, scooby dooby nachos, Waffles."

Martina closed the door, but they could hear her shouting as they strolled down the cedar planked walkway, "Waffles? I'm going to kill you, Millie-Joyce!"


	8. Chapter 8

"I didn't know you spoke Czech." Jane paced on the deck as Maura rooted through her purse looking for the house key.

"It's an easy language. Once you've mastered the Slavic matrix, it's only a matter of nuance."

"I'm sure you've mastered all the mattresses. One day you'll probably burst out in Zulu."

Maura pushed the door open, turning to Jane with a triumphant smile. She opened her mouth and let out a rapid series of clicks.

"The fuck is that? You got something caught in your throat?"

"That was Zulu. I asked if you'd like to have a drink first or immediately have intercourse."

"Ka ka ka ka ka ka goo goo woof." Jane replied.

"That's not Zulu."

"It's a related language, part of the matrix. I just said that you should go upstairs and get naked. I'll let the dog out and be up in five minutes with a snifter of Grand Marnier."

Maura poked her in the ribs. "Fine."

Jane tiptoed up the stairs, mindful of their sleeping guests. Jo scampered behind her, less mindful.

"Babe?" She whispered.

Maura emerged from the bathroom, undressed save an empty harness strapped across her hips, the black leather a stark contrast to the pale ivory of her body. She swayed in the doorway, intoxicated by the flush of arousal that washed over Jane's chest and neck. Her own nipples hardened when Jane ran her tongue across her chapped lips.

Jane approached, taking a deep drink of cognac and holding it in her mouth. She bent her neck and captured Maura's lips with her own. Turning her mouth into a chalice, she drizzled the orangey liquor onto her lover's tongue.

Maura swallowed, feeling the burn race to her belly and coil around her mounting desire. "There's a bag of toys under the bed. Choose your weapon, detective."

"So…you're going to…"

"Yes. I told you I like a woman in a dress. I'm going to show you how much."

Jane knelt next to the bed and shoved her hand into the open purple knapsack, grabbing a toy at random. Maura, in contrast, would ponder over her choices; running the pads of her fingers over ridges and bumps, mentally calculating angles of entrance before settling on the right tool for the position she had in mind.

Jane's hand had settled upon a plain black phallus, smooth from end to end and slightly broader at its base. She offered it shyly to Maura who hovered above her next to the bed.

"You do it, Jane."

She shifted in closer, reaching for the silvery O-ring at the apex of Maura's thighs. She could smell her lover's arousal, earthy and primal under the smoky scent of the leather.

"Oh…" The phallus dropped from her hand as she pushed aside the flap of leather covering the tawny down of Maura's mons. She pressed her face in and inhaled deeply.

When Maura trembled above her, she allowed her hungry lips to move lower, kissing their way to the warm cleft of Maura's sex.

Maura bent her knees, allowing Jane better access, her hands resting lightly on the crown of Jane's head. Jane's hair was so soft, so silky against her thighs and under her fingertips, a glossy ebony cascade. She watched the dark head move against her through half-lidded eyes, feasting on the sight of Jane's firm ass silhouetted under the tightened fabric of her own black cocktail dress. Her fingers grasped tighter, short nails scraping at Jane's scalp…_so close, so__…_

Maura tightened her jaw, fighting against the fluttery sensation in her lower abdomen. She stepped back pushing Jane's head away.

"Maura?"

She looked down into espresso-colored eyes, noting the fully-dilated pupils. Jane was deeply aroused. Her own wetness glistened on the detective's lips and cheek. The sight of it nearly sent her over the precipice.

"Jane, I want to…" Her erudite vocabulary was lost to her at times like this; she became carnal and primitive. "…I want to fuck you. I want to come inside you."

Jane nodded, her eye's locked to Maura's, entranced.

Maura bent and picked up the discarded toy, easily sliding it into its ring. Jane stood, towering a full five inches above her lover. It didn't matter; Maura was in control. She reached for Jane's neck, pulling her down for a crushing kiss. Her tongue swirled around Jane's mouth, reclaiming her own taste which coated Jane's teeth and tongue. She pulled back, sucking softer at her fianceé's swollen lips.

Jane's blood drummed through her body, her rapid heartbeat pulsing in the taut veins of her neck. Maura's mouth found them and suckled, her sure hands bunching up the black fabric of Jane's dress and tearing at a pair of her own bikini panties, fitting loosely over her lover's narrow hips.

Jane stepped out of the panties and kicked them aside. "Dress on or off?"

Maura's eyes narrowed, gold and green, catlike.

"Off." She decided.

Jane clawed at the tight bow above her left hip. Her damaged hands became clumsy when she was stressed or aroused. "Goddamn it." She hissed.

Maura reached down and easily freed the tie, the dress opening up and sliding from Jane's tan shoulders, pooling at her feet. She bent to pick it up, knowing how careful Maura was with her clothing.

"Leave it." Maura husked.

She followed her lover to the bed and eased her long body onto the mattress, spreading her thighs in welcome.

Maura knelt between them, noting the dew that glistened on the dark hair of Jane's sex. She bent her head and kissed the opening, her tongue danced briefly over Jane's erect clitoris, eliciting a rumbling moan. She was ready.

Maura pushed into her slowly, feeling resistance and then none. She lowered her body onto Jane's, carefully aligning herself so their nipples touched. Jane's eyelashes fluttered at the exquisite contact. Bracing herself against the mattress, Maura began to move, slowly at first and then more rapidly, thrusting harder.

The ancient bed frame squeaked and groaned in protest beneath them. Maura's eyes shot open and she chewed on her lower lip, a nervous gesture. She had seamlessly moved from geeky Maura to dominant Maura back to geeky Maura in a matter of 10 minutes.

Jane laughed. "I love you so much. You are so damn sexy."

Dominant Maura was back. "Shush. We have to be quiet." She clasped her hand over Jane's laughing mouth and pressed their foreheads together. She continued to thrust, harder, but slower, willing the bed to be as silent as Jane.

The harness drew tight between Maura's legs, rubbing deliciously against her own swollen clit on every upthrust. She no longer cared about the noise; she was immersed in Jane, lost in her.

Jane began to move against her from below, propelling her body up using her heels for leverage. Maura removed her hand from Jane's mouth and brought it between them, her thumb just able to stroke Jane's clitoris. It was enough. Jane lifted her hips from the bed, wrapping her legs around Maura's waist. She swallowed her usual exultant roar, but it played across her face nonetheless; the muscles in her cheeks twitched, her lips trembled and then her face went slack, peaceful.

Maura watched as her own orgasm hit her, pulling like a tight band from her sex through the base of her skull, then releasing, diffusing warm heat through every muscle. She collapsed against Jane with a soft sigh.

"Think we woke them?"

"I can't imagine anyone could sleep through all that squeaking and rattling."

Jane laughed. "Tomorrow. I will tighten the bed frame tomorrow. I promise."

"Mmm." Maura grunted, not believing her.

"Good thing we're not a pair of 300-pound men."

"Good thing." Maura agreed, remembering the beefy trio in Girl Scout uniforms at the disco. "What did they call themselves? Bulls?"

"Bears." Jane murmured into her hair. "Grrrrr."

Maura rolled to her side, the bed frame protested even this slight movement. "Tomorrow, Jane. We may as well be bears with the damage we did to this bed."

"Yes, my love."

Jo Friday timidly approached, standing on her hind legs to peep over the edge of the mattress.

"Look, Maur, our little cub wants to snuggle in our den." She patted the sheet next to her. "C'mon, girl, the excitement is over. Let's all hibernate until tomorrow."

Jo leapt onto the mattress, cast a wary eye at her mommies and settled herself into a tan ball at the foot of the bed.

* * *

"Jane, get up. We're all having breakfast together." Maura called from the bottom of the stairs.

Jane groaned and buried her face deeper into the pillows, pulling an especially soft one close to her face. Jo Friday yelped and gave her an indignant look before rolling toward Maura's side of the bed and continuing to snore.

"Jane." Maura climbed the stairs and stood at the entrance to their bedroom. "I'm frying bacon."

Both detective and dog peeped an eye open at the sound of that magic word. Two noses tested the air, found it lacking and snuggled back into their blankets.

"Bacon, coffee, eggs with cheese, English muffins dripping with butter." Maura slowly recited the words in her sexiest bedroom voice, enticing her lover away from sleep as surely as if she were purring, "sex, tongue, breasts with nipples, vagina dripping with wetness."

Jane stretched and opened her eyes again. "It's gotta be freakin' early, Maur. The sun isn't even blinding me yet."

"It's just past six. Faye and Kaye want to talk to us. I think they're leaving, Jane."

"What?"

Jane sprung from the bed. "No fucking way. I'll put a stop to that."

"Diplomacy, Jane." Maura rested a hand on her bare chest. "Diplomacy and clothes."

Five minutes later Jane pounded down the stairs in her salt-stiff jean shorts and purple tee.

Maura met her with a cup of coffee and a kiss. "You smell like a mermaid."

"Yeah. This outfit had a good washing in the Atlantic last night."

"Maybe so, but I'm tired of looking at it. I'll go through my wardrobe later. I'm sure I can find a few suitable items for you to wear. If not, I may relent and allow you a supervised trip across the bay to purchase some appropriate attire."

"Walmart, here I come." Jane clapped her hands.

Maura shook her head. "Nassau and Suffolk Counties are numbers 13 and 22 respectively on the list of highest per capita income in the entire country. I'm sure there are other places to shop besides Walmart."

"The dollar store?" Jane asked.

Maura ignored her and returned her attention to the sizzling bacon on the stove top.

"Where are the girls?"

"Having coffee on the back deck."

"C'mon, Jo. Let's be diplomats." Jane slid the door open and Jo Friday dashed out, racing down the stairs to the sandy patch of yard to relieve her bladder.

Faye and Kaye were seated at the plastic patio table, nursing coffees in matching Cherry Grove is for Lovers mugs.

"Morning, gals."

"Whoa, Jane. I didn't expect to see you before noon. Maura said you two got in well after midnight."

"I hope we didn't wake you." Jane flashed to the squeaky bed frame and their futile attempts at silent sex.

"Nah. I have the sleep apnea; I don't hear anything with that Darth Vader mask over my face, and Faye wears earplugs on account of my snoring."

Jane relaxed. She could put off tightening the bed frame for another day. She pulled a plastic chair into the sun and stretched her long legs out in front of her.

"What's on our agenda today? Wanna hit the mainland and chaperone my shopping spree at Walmart? Maura's embarrassed to be seen with me in these same clothes. Maybe we could take the squirt to lunch at Taco Bell or even better, White Castle. Maura won't step foot in either of my favorite eateries, and I could sure go for a volcano taco with macho nachos or a sack of greasy sliders."

Kaye closed her eyes, a dreamy look settling over her features. "I haven't had White Castle since we moved to Vermont. Very tempting, Jane, but we promised Annaliese a day at the beach."

"There will plenty of beach days. The forecast is sunny and mid 80s all through next week." Jane opened the door, now it was up to her friends to walk through it.

Faye rested her hand on her wife's arm and gave a gentle squeeze. "We're leaving tomorrow, Jane."

"What? Why?"

Faye sighed. "Annaliese is in a strange environment and she's acting out. Cherry Grove may not be the best place for her."

As if her Nana's words had summoned her, the skinny redhead appeared on the other side of the patio door, her nose pressed against the glass forming a pig snout.

"I'm boooorrrred." She whined.

Kaye gestured for her to join them. "Wanna play a game of Hide and Seek?"

"Fuck no. I want to play with some toys."

"Your toys are at home. You had the choice to bring one item and you chose your Kindle. Why don't you read for half an hour before breakfast?"

"Okay." The child was surprisingly compliant. "Can I read to Jo Friday?"

"Sure." Jane whistled and the little dog trotted up the stairs and sat beside her. "Jo, Annaliese is going to read you a story. Pay attention. There may be a pop quiz after."

Dog and girl disappeared into the house. Jane followed her inside where Maura was squeezing oranges into juice using a metal strainer. "Save me some pulp, babe."

"I will, if I can. This is hard work without the right equipment."

"You didn't pack the juicer?" Jane asked in mock incredulity. "And you accused me of under packing."

Maura smirked. "That was sarcasm, right?"

"Yes!" Jane pumped her fist. "You're catching on. Let me help. I don't want you to strain your fingers; I may need them later."

She kissed the top of a perfectly coiffed blonde head. "Let's do this outside. Faye and Kaye are serious about leaving."

"Oh, Jane." Maura looked crestfallen.

"C'mon, baby, let's see if we can't convince them to stay." Jane picked up the bag of oranges and the strainer and nudged the tearful doctor toward the door.

A moment later, Annaliese was back with her face pressed against the glass.

"What is it, sweetheart? You couldn't have read an entire story in just a few minutes."

She pushed the glass open and stuck her head through the gap. "I told Jo a story from my mind."

"A creative mind. Brava!" Maura smiled. "What was it about?"

"It's about a girl from Vermont who gets a letter in the mail saying she is really a magician. She goes to Hogwarts and learns how to turn animals into other animals."

"Like Harry Potter." Jane nodded.

"No. Harry Potter sucks ass. My story is better."

"I'm sure it is, Pumpkin." Kaye beamed at her granddaughter.

"We decided to act it out." The girl continued, stepping through the door. "I am the best fucking magician in the world, the magnificent Annaliese Capasso!"

She twirled in a circle, her magician's cape, made of a white bed sheet tied around her neck trailed along the sandy deck behind her.

"Very nice." Kaye clapped, explaining to her wife. "She made a cape, babe."

Faye smiled and clapped as well. "Do you know any tricks, oh wise magician?"

"Yes. I turned Jo Friday into a unicorn with my magic wand."

She reached under her cape and pulled out a pink and purple swirled vibrator.

Maura gasped.

"Wait, here's the best part." She twisted the base and it began to buzz. "Abracadabra! Jo Friday, come show everyone."

The little dog poked her nose through the open door, then quickly scampered through and ran to her mother's side.

"Oh, shit!" Kaye blanched.

Jane groaned and Maura covered her face with both hands.

"What is it, love? What's wrong?" Faye turned her sightless gaze from woman to woman, willing someone to tell her what had happened.

"J-Jo is wearing a…a strap-on." Kaye stuttered.

"Ours?" Her wife asked.

"No! I didn't bring that. Did you?"

"No. I thought about it, but decided it was best left at home as we might be sharing a room with Annaliese."

Kaye pulled her embarrassed eyes away from her wife and back to the little dog who was now lying on the deck, swatting with her small paws at the black dildo standing erect between her ears. The phallus quivered and slid a bit with each smack only to right itself again.

The four adults sat in stunned silence for a full minute while the child ran around the table, swinging the still buzzing vibrator. "Hocus pocus! Catch my magic!"

Finally Jane squatted next to her distressed pet and gently unclasped the straps of the harness which Annaliese had wrapped twice around the dog's mid-section. The contraption fell away and the relieved animal licked her hand in gratitude then jumped into Maura's lap.

"Hey! You ruined my unicorn. That's shitty!"

"Annaliese…" Faye quietly addressed her granddaughter. "Give Jane your magic wand."

"No! It's mine!"

"It is not yours. Where did you find those…items?"

"In a bag under Jane's bed. I heard Maura tell her there was a bag of toys under there and I remembered seeing it when I had to crawl under to get Jane's phone. I wanted to play with the toys." She started to cry.

Kaye sat very still, staring at her hands, allowing her wife to handle the situation. "Annaliese, give Jane her wand. Those are adult toys, not for children."

The girl flung the vibrator in Jane's general direction, then threw herself onto the ground where she continued to howl.

Jane picked it up and turned it off, passing it, along with the strap-on to Maura. "Put these someplace…um, safe."

Maura nodded. "I have a cabinet that locks in the examination room." She kissed Jo's head and placed her back on the deck. "Good girl, Jo Friday. I have a slice of bacon for you in the kitchen."

Jane flopped back into her chair, grateful for her fianceé's neurotic cleanliness, which caused her to completely sterilize every toy after it was used. "Well, that was awkward, but I'm sure we will laugh about this down the road."

"Sorry, Jane." Kaye's cheeks were still flushed pink with embarrassment.

"Nah, it is kind of funny." She chuckled, imagining retelling the story to…Frost and Korsak? No, maybe just Frost. _Yeah, definitely Frost._

"Hey, Kiddo, I got something for you, a toy that you can play with and keep." Jane attempted an indulgent smile.

"What is it?" The red-head was still sniffling, but her mood brightened considerably at the thought of a gift.

She held up a finger as she took a deep swallow of hot coffee. "I won a prize at the disco last night. I think you might like it." She dashed back into the house and rooted through the kitchen cabinets. "Maur, where did you put that…never mind, here it is."

She grinned at the solemn-faced wooden doll. Volga and Olga had managed to capture their own essence in the wide eyes and solemn demeanor.

"What the fuck is it?" The girl's demand brought Jane out of her reverie.

"It's a set of Russian nesting dolls." Jane passed the prize over. "Enjoy."

"Ah, Matryoskas!" Faye smiled, relief flooding her system. "I had a set as a girl. Each had the face of a different Orthodox saint. They were lovely."

Annaliese made short work of pulling the dolls apart and tossing their separate halves over the railing into the dirt. "These all have the same face and they're as ugly as a…" She scrunched her brows together in thought. "…as ugly as a pile of dog shit. I hate dolls."

She pouted and kicked at the deck planks. "Can you get that midget Honey Doo Doo to come play with me? We could be bridezilla beauty pageant contestants."

"Certainly not." Faye admonished.

"This is the suckiest, suck-ass vacation ever."

"We'll go to the beach later, sweetheart. We can build sandcastles and collect shells."

"Bullshit! I don't want to go to the crappy beach." Her face had turned as red as her hair and fat tears ran down her freckled cheeks. "I hate Fire Island and I hate you too!"

Faye and Kaye sat quietly, enduring the tirade. When it was over, Annaliese propped herself against the deck railing and sniffled in silence.

Jane wanted to throttle her, but followed her friends' lead. She said nothing. The three adults fidgeted awkwardly with their coffee mugs until Maura tapped on the glass. "Who needs another coffee?"

Everyone rose at once and shuffled into the house, eager to leave the unpleasant scene behind. The child remained on the deck, pouting. Kaye pulled the door shut with a snick, then reopened it and stuck her head out. "Go pick up your dollies, Pumpkin, then come back up here where I can see you. Stay on the deck."

Jane dropped into a kitchen chair and snagged a strip of bacon. "Picture it, Boston 1979; my Zia Franca, my Nonna's older sister, had flown all the way from Palermo for my First Holy Communion. Ma stuffed me into my little white bride dress and pinned the veil over my face. She sat on my bed and we practiced my greeting one last time. 'When you see your Zia, you tell her; _Ciao, Zia Franca. B__envenuto a Boston. Ti amo._Don't fuck this up, Jane. Your Zia is very superstitious. You get one word wrong and she'll think you have _malocchio_, that someone cursed you.'"

Maura piped in. "Jane was an adorable communicant, so chubby, with a sad, lost look on her face. Angela has the communion photo on her mantel."

Jane snorted in disgust. "I was a fat tomboy with a unibrow, stuffed into a cheap taffeta dress passed down from my cousin Cookie who was half my size. Nothing cute about that."

Maura shrugged.

Faye patted her hand. "You're looking through the eyes of love, my dear."

"Anyway…" Jane continued. "I waddled downstairs and kissed Zia in the Italian way, on both cheeks and I stepped back to give my little speech, only I couldn't remember a damn thing. My mind was completely empty. I struggled to come up with some phrase in Italian, anything…_macaroni, arrivederci, __buongiorno__, cannoli_, anything. Zia Franca was looking at me like I was an idiot, her eyes got all small and hard. Finally I opened my mouth and said, '_vaffanculo._'"

"No!" Kaye slapped her hand on the table. "As an Italian girl from Brooklyn, I can attest to our two WASP doctors, that is the absolute worst thing you could have said. That's beyond _malocchio_, Jane. She must have thought you were _posseduto dal diavolo_!"

"I don't know what she thought, but she started screaming in Sicilian, which not even my mother understood. My Nonna grabbed me by my hair and dragged me into the basement to the laundry room. Nonna never used the washing machine. She scrubbed all of her clothes and Nonno's when he was alive, by hand with a bar of Kirkman's brown soap. I don't know how she did it, but she lifted my fat ass up and over her shoulder and jammed the entire bar of soap into my mouth. Then she scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed. The soap grated against my teeth making little strips so my tongue was completely coated. I was hysterical; snot and tears mixed in making a nasty froth."

"Oh, poor Jane." Faye shook her head sadly.

"Yeah, poor me. To this day, whenever I take communion I taste Kirkman's soap. Maybe it's why I never developed a taste for red wine."

"That could be." Maura raised her lecture finger. "Studies have shown that if the sensory properties of foods are linked to a traumatic event, one can develop an aversion. There was an article in the last issue of _The Journal of Psychological Oncology_ linking food patients ate during chemotherapy to lifelong distaste for those items. Some patients even developed allergies to their favorite meals because the association with their illness was so strong."

"Fascinating; subconscious aversion therapy." Faye nodded.

Jane reached for another piece of bacon, but Maura picked up the plate and moved it to the counter. "Well, my point is…"

Kaye interrupted. "You think that we should wash Annaliese's mouth out with soap to improve her vocabulary."

Jane blushed, preparing to backpeddle. She didn't want to insult their friends. "Well, it worked for me. I know I have a foul mouth now, but that comes from 20 years of being a cop. That kid is a lot smarter than I ever was, but she's, um…she needs…I don't know."

Kaye chuckled. "I had my mouth washed out with soap twice as a child. Once I called my Nonna an old witch and the second time I spilled Sunday sauce on my Easter dress and said 'shit.' It didn't do me any lasting damage and I probably learned something from it, but…"

She reached for Faye's hand. "Annaliese is a special case."

She glanced toward her wife who nodded once and closed her eyes.

Kaye drew in a deep breath and released it. "We had a sweet little grandson, Andy, just the best kid you could imagine, a goofy smile that made you grin even when you felt like crap. He was…damn, just the best kid ever. Annaliese was so good with him. Tom and April, our daughter-in-law, prepared her to be a big sister. 'You look after Andy, he's your baby brother. He looks up to you.' And she did. She's 14 months older. They never fought, always shared toys. Then he…"

Kaye took off her glasses and wiped them on her T-shirt.

"Leukemia." Faye stated plainly.

"Oh." Maura turned off the stove and took a seat next to Faye, resting a gentle hand on her arm.

"Tom and April took him to New York, to Sloan Kettering, naturally. They rented an apartment on the Upper East Side to be near the hospital. Annaliese stayed with us in Vermont. Her behavior changed gradually. She missed her parents. She would say or do anything to gain their attention, but they were focused on Andy."

"The little guy went through eight months of chemo and he almost made it." Kaye added.

"He did well with chemotherapy." Faye continued. "Annaliese was a close enough match to try an allogeneic transplant of bone marrow. We brought her to New York for the procedure…"

Jane felt terrible. She wished she could stuff all of her words back into her big fat mouth like a pile of cheap hot dogs. Both of their friends were crying and Kaye's hand was white where Faye clutched at it.

"We all told Annaliese what a good big sister she was, that she was going to save her little brother with cells from her own body. We…" Kaye sobbed.

Faye took up the narrative. "We thought he was out from the forest…"

"Out of the woods, babe." Kaye smiled through her tears. "You never get that one right."

"I'm also bad with idioms, Faye." Maura rubbed her arm.

The older doctor nodded. "Then I'm in fine company, Maura."

She felt for her coffee mug and her wife placed it in her hand. She took a small sip and continued. "I read every report myself. He was in remission, but needed a transplant to fight the effects of so many rounds of strong chemotherapy. April had his umbilical cord stored in a bank, so he could have used his own stem cells, but they lost it."

"No!"

"That's unconscionable."

"It is, but it happens more often than you would think."

Jane glanced out of the sliding glass door to the back porch where the little redhead was rebuilding the Matryoshka dolls, oblivious to the emotional turmoil of the adults inside.

"Did they do the transplant?" Maura asked.

"Yes. Annaliese was very brave. Although I explained the procedure to her as thoroughly as possible, she misunderstood. She thought she was going to donate all of her bone marrow to her brother and that she would die. Despite that belief, she agreed."

"When she woke up, she thought she was in heaven." Kaye added.

"He developed GVHD and it…it was fatal." Faye released her wife's hand and folded her own on the table before her.

"Graft versus Host Disease." Maura explained to Jane. "When the recipient's body fights against the donated tissue as if it were an invading virus or bacteria."

Kaye stood and poured herself another coffee. "You want a hotter, babe?"

"Yes, please."

She filled Faye's cup and added a dash of milk, testing the temperature with her lips before placing it into her wife's hands.

"So our granddaughter thinks she killed her brother."

"Wow." Jane pulled her fingers through her hair, unsure what else to say. "How long is he gone?"

"Eight months." Kaye replied.

"Eight months and three days." Faye quietly amended.

"Is she seeing a therapist?" Maura asked.

"Yes. We all are. Dr. Betten says it is important to build up her self-esteem. She needs an outlet for her anger lest she turn it inward. We correct her in moderation, encourage her to write in her journal, try to fill her days with positive experiences, but…"

"It sucks." Kaye summed up the entire situation in two words.

"So you can understand that Cherry Grove, with its clothing-optional beach, cemetery of decapitated dolls, and men named Butthole who sing about dildos, is not the optimal environment for a child with…with emotional issues."

Kaye grimaced. "And now with Ming on the island…you know how she can be; batshit crazy with a vocabulary that makes me blush, even after 31 years as a cop in New York City."

"You should have heard her last night, Kaye. She was in rare form." Jane risked a smile across the table.

Her smile was answered with a grin and a hearty laugh. "I wish I had. Ming is a pisser. I hope we get to see her, even briefly before we leave."

"Maur and I can watch the little one if you two want to stop over at _Swings Both Ways_. Maybe you'll get to meet Waffles, um, Martina Navratilova as well. We'll be sorry to see you leave." Jane wiped a tear from her own eye. "We don't have too many friends. It's basically just us and a few guys from work."

"We don't either." Faye frowned. "Moving to Vermont seemed like a wonderful idea when Kaye retired, but we left our entire lives behind in New York and so many in our circle have passed. Maura, thank you for making me feel useful again. I haven't doctored since I lost my sight."

"Useful? You're my lifeline, Faye. I don't know if I can manage without you."

"You'll be fine. You're an excellent doctor, Maura. I'm only a phone call away if you need me, but I suspect you will manage brilliantly on your own."

Kaye pushed away from the table. "It's a little too quiet out there. I'm going to check on the rugrat."

Jane followed her outside, aching to say something comforting to her friend, but she didn't know where to begin.

Annaliese was not on the deck. Jane panicked, leaping over the wooden railing to the sandy patch of ground below in one athletic bound. She looked left and right, no child. _Shit, shit, shit_. Visions of a pair of red braids disappearing below the turbulent gray waters of the Atlantic filled Jane's mind; she began to sweat. She glanced over her shoulder. Kaye was making her way slowly down the steps from the deck. There was no time to wait. Jane kicked the stockade gate and it flew open. In three steps she was down the ramp and on the boardwalk, sprinting toward the ocean.

"Hey, Doody-ball, you got ants in your pants?"

Jane skidded to a stop. If she were a cartoon woman, sparks would have shot from under her heels.

"Annaliese? What are you doing out here? Your Gran told you not to leave the deck."

The child shrugged. "I made you and Maura a present. Look."

The Matryoshka dolls had been reopened and separated into their six individual selves. Three stood, impaled on sticks just to the left of the garden gate. The other three were smashed to bits and lay half buried in the sand, their round blue eyes peeping up as if from a desecrated grave.

"Now you have your own dolly cemetery."

"Wow. That's great, Kiddo. I love it." Jane closed the distance between them and wrapped the skinny child in her arms, peppering the top of her head with kisses.

"Eww, you're gonna give me cooties. Put me down, you fucking weirdo."

Jane held her tighter, planting loud, smacking kisses on her cheeks and the bridge of her nose as she carried her back up the walk and into the yard where Kaye was waiting. Annaliese continued to protest, but by the time she was deposited into her Gran's arms, she was laughing and snorting.

"You hungry, lovebug?" Kaye asked.

"I'm so hungry I could eat a bag of frozen diarrhea." The child answered.

"I'm afraid we're out of that." Jane answered, ruffling her hair. "You'll have to make due with bacon and scrambled eggs."

When they entered the kitchen, Maura was talking on her cellphone while Faye painstakingly separated English muffins with a fork, feeling along the edges for the seam, then gently prodding at it with the tines. She turned her head when the trio entered.

"Is that you, Annaliese?"

"Yes, Nana."

"Go upstairs and wash your hands. Remember to sing the alphabet song twice to ensure you've properly sanitized them. Then write two sentences in your journal; what you did this morning and one goal for the day."

"Fine." The red-head stomped up the wooden stairs, muttering under her breath. "Fucking journal can kiss my ass."

Maura put her finger in her left ear and pulled her cell closer to her right, glaring at Jane. "I can't hear," she mouthed.

"I didn't say a word." Jane touched her chest, wide eyes protesting her innocence.

"Yes. I'm still here." Maura resumed her conversation. "That would be ideal… go ahead…no, I don't need to grab a pen; I have an eidetic memory…thank you, Tenisha. I will phone back within the hour."

Maura tapped her phone to end the call. She pulled out a chair and sat beside Faye, taking the older physician's hand in her own.

"Tell Kaye." Faye urged.

"The Isles Foundation sponsors a host of programs for children."

"P.U.K.E." Jane interrupted. "Maura and I mentor a group of shelter kids every third Saturday. Bad name, great program."

"This isn't P.U.K.E., Jane. This is Girl Power Camp."

"I guess you didn't name that one cause it's kind of cool."

"I didn't. Girl Power Camp is a sleep-away camp for girls who are struggling with a myriad of issues; some have poor self-esteem or have been bullied, others have lost a parent, some are homeless or have been abused. I spent a weekend at the New Hampshire camp last summer teaching a science module; every girl learned how to use a microscope and basic lab equipment. They typed their own blood."

"Oh." Faye perked up. "I would have loved that as a child."

"I would have hated it." Jane groaned. "Like being in school for the summer."

"It's not just science, there are team-building exercises and sports, music and drama. There's something for every girl to excel at and the counselors are not a group of bored teenagers, they are experts in their fields; players from the WNBA coach basketball modules, Maya Angelou volunteered every summer to teach poetry, Margaret Cho runs a comedy workshop. Tenisha Jones, the director of Girl Power, just told me that someone named Lita Ford will be teaching the girls to 'shred guitar.' Is that the right term, Jane?"

"Yes it is. You remembered an idiom, babe. Lita Ford, damn! I think I'd like to go to this camp. She's a hottie."

Maura swatted affectionately at her fianceé. "Tenisha is holding a spot for Annaliese at the New York camp in Bridgehampton."

"What do you think, Kaye?" Faye rested a hand on her wife's thigh.

"Leave her for a week on her own? I don't know. They may throw her out…like at school."

"The staff at Girl Power are experienced with all sorts of children. There are psychologists and social workers on staff."

Kaye ran her hand through her spiky grey hair, massaging her scalp as if she could collect her thoughts with her fingertips. "Bridgehampton's only about an hour away. We can try it for one night. If she's miserable, we'll pick her up tomorrow and take her home to Vermont."

Maura smiled. "I'll call Tenisha and tell her the good news. Would you like me to have someone meet her at the ferry?"

"No. We'll take her, Maura." Faye replied. "I'd like to see the camp with my own eyes…figuratively speaking."

"We'll take her after breakfast." Kaye agreed.

Jane's phone belched. She pulled it from her jean pocket and swiped at the screen. "If you make it back by 2:00, we can all go to the V.U.L.V.A. meeting together."

"You heard back from the Facebook group?" Kaye asked.

"Yup. Meeting this afternoon at _Hold Her Liquor_."

Annaliese appeared at the bottom of the stairs. "What's a vulva?" She asked.

"A luxury sedan from Sweden." Jane answered.


	9. Chapter 9

Maura dropped onto a red vinyl upholstered seat at the bar in Cherry's. Aside from a pair of older women nursing Budweisers at the opposite end, she was the only customer. She sat patiently, hands folded on the polyurethane wood bar top as Olga or Volga, oblivious to her arrival, squatted behind the bar filling bottles with a yellow plastic funnel. She noted the same gallon jug of Georgi vodka was being used to top up smaller bottles of Absolut, Kettle One, and Stolichnaya. Maura cleared her throat and the bartender popped up, narrowly missing smashing the top of her grey head on the bar's edge.

"Oi, Doctora Eye-lez." Volga tossed the funnel aside, nudging the half empty jug of cheap vodka out of sight with one Croc-clad foot.

"Volga, I was hoping you would be here today." Though it niggled at her principles, she would never be rude enough to mention the deceitful practice she had witnessed. She smiled and continued. "I wanted to check on your finger. How is it healing?"

Volga thrust a meaty hand across the bar. "Is good. You take stitchings out now?"

"No, no." Maura turned the hand over and carefully examined a neat row of black stitches running up the pad of Volga's thumb. She nodded, some of her finest work. "It should barely leave a scar."

"Scar?" Volga laughed, her gold tooth flashing."My body is one big scar. Many years on Soviet gymnastic team."

The chubby Russian glanced nervously around the empty bar, her pale eyes darting from the neatly stacked audio equipment in the corner to the row of vacant picnic tables fronting the bay. One small motorboat bobbed on its tether in the green water, its owner stretched out across the back bench in a red bikini, tanned skin glistening with coconut oil.

Maura followed her gaze. Where other people may have seen a beautiful woman, Maura saw skin cancer; melanomas, basal and squamous cell carcinoma, dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans and keratoacanthoma. She pulled her eyes away from the sun worshiper, fighting the urge to get up and lecture the woman on the dangers of ultraviolet exposure. She looked instead at Volga, whose own melonocytic nervus clung to the tip of her nose like a fat raisin on one of those delicious scones that Angela served at the Division One Café. She bit her lip and shifted her gaze to the bartender's eyes, which were careworn and sad, the color of much-washed denim.

"Volga, is something bothering you?"

"Nyet." She shook her head and began wiping at the pristine bar top with a borscht stained tea towel. She grunted in effort as she rubbed at an old cigarette burn in the wood.

Maura was inclined to take people at their word, but a tear trembling on Volga's eyelash signaled a burden that the kind doctor was willing to share.

"Volga? You can speak to me frankly. I'm a physician; anything you tell me I am bound to keep in the strictest confidence."

The older woman sighed, her shoulders slumping. "Someone is stalking against me."

Maura narrowed her eyes. "You have a stalker? Is someone threatening your life?"

"Da."

Maura rested a hand on the woman's beefy forearm. "My partner, Jane, is a police detective. She can protect you, find the person before he or she harms you."

Volga's eyes shot open. "No politsia. There are dangerous people in my past, people who helped me and Olga when we defect. They do not like detectives."

Maura bit her lip and leaned in closer. "The mafia?"

Volga said nothing, but a muscle twitched in her cheek. "This is not mafia threat. This is…" She struggled for the word in English. "…personal."

"What does Olga say?"

"I do not tell Olga."

"Tell me." Maura held her gaze, unblinking for a full minute.

Finally Volga nodded. She strode across the bar to check on the two women who were still nursing the same warm beers and returned. From a cabinet in the bar well, she pulled out a bottle of Moya Dorogaya and a battered Dell laptop. She poured herself a generous shot, crossed herself in the Orthodox style, from right to left, and drank down the clear liquid.

"Do you know the Golden Girls?" She began.

"Yes! I do." Maura was proud of herself. Her ignorance of popular culture was profound, but thanks to Jane she was well versed in the situation comedy that revolved around three retired friends and the elderly mother of one who shared a house in Miami. Her mind wandered back six years to her first exposure to the show.

_The doorbell rang and Maura groaned. __"__Go away.__" __She managed to croak before burrowing her head back into the high stack of pillows. With a cough that tore through her chest like fire in a dry forest, she could only manage to sleep sitting up. _

_The doorbell rang again and she ignored it along with the two minutes of pounding that followed. It must be that irritating neighbor trying to get her to sign a petition. He was always advocating for something; forcing the residents of the block to use the same size and color garbage cans, getting the city to compel another neighbor to paint his peeling door, banning dogs from the park. What a completely bothersome human being._

_Maura coughed again and reached for a tissue to blow her nose. She hadn__'__t been this sick in years; sick enough that she prescribed herself a dose of augmentin, called in sick to work, and took to her bed. _

_The windowpane to her left rattled, and she turned her head. Jane Rizzoli__'__s face appeared framed by a black lion__'__s mane of hair, liberally sprinkled with downy snow. Maura thought she must be hallucinating. She ran a cool hand across her clammy forehead. She had a fever for sure. She closed her eyes. Sleep._

_The window rattled again. _

"_Maura! Open up! Are you dead?__"_

_She wasn__'__t dead and apparently she wasn__'__t hallucinating. That crazy detective from homicide that she__'__d had drinks with a few times was really standing on her roof._

_She kicked aside the blankets with effort and shambled to the window, unlatching it and pushing it up just enough to speak through. __"__I__'__m sick.__"_

_Jane opened it all the way and folded her long body through the opening. __"__I kinda figured that. You__'__ve been working with us for 6 months and you__'__ve never taken a day off. I__'__ve been calling your cell all day and I started to worry.__"_

"_You worried?__"_

"_Sure. That__'__s what friends do. Hold up. No, on second thought, go back to bed. I brought you some soup that my Ma made, but it__'__s downstairs on your doorstep. I__'__ll be right back.__"_

_She was gone for a while and Maura had begun to doze again._

"_Hey. That microwave of yours is some piece of work. Was it designed by NASA? You must need a Ph.D. in engineering to operate it. Finally had to heat this up on the stove.__"_

_She thrust a steaming bowl of brownish broth under Maura__'__s nose. The doctor couldn__'__t smell anything, but the warm vapor rising from it was soothing in itself._

"_What is it?__"_

"_Soup. Stracciatella; it has egg drops and pastini and spinach, all good stuff. Do you want me to feed you?__"_

"_Certainly not.__" __Maura lifted the spoon and took in a tiny mouthful._

"_Do you like it? Ma__'__s an amazing cook. You have to come by for dinner soon, maybe even this Sunday if you__'__re feeling better.__"_

_Maura swallowed another spoonful and then another. The warm salty liquid felt wonderful sliding down her scratchy throat. __"__You want me to have dinner with your family?__"_

"_Yeah, why not?__" __Jane was blushing now, rocking on her heels with her hands jammed deep into the front pockets of her black jeans. __"__Is that weird?__"_

_Maura tilted her head. __"__I don__'__t know.__" __She answered honestly. __"__I__'__ve never had dinner with anyone__'__s family before; I__'__ve never been asked.__"_

"_Will you come? I mean, if you__'__re better.__"_

"_Yes.__"_

_Jane let out her breath in a rush. __"__Good. My family is a little__…__loud, but they__'__re harmless. Do you have a DVD player up here?__"_

_Maura pointed to the flat screen mounted on the wall. __"__In the cabinet, under the television. Is there a case file you want my opinion on?__"_

"_No!__" __Jane laughed. __"__You__'__re not working today. This is purely for entertainment purposes. I brought you comfort food and comfort television.__"_

_Jane slid the DVD into the player and before the doctor could protest, she__'__d plopped herself onto the bed beside Maura. _

_Maura looked at her, bewildered._

"_Oh, sorry.__" __Jane jumped up and kicked off her boots then lifted the covers and slid in next to Maura. _

"_Golden Girls! My favorite.__" __She smiled. __"__My brother Frankie, you met him at the Dirty Robber; he__'__s the devastatingly handsome uniformed cop, looks like me in a male sort of way. He bought me the complete set for Christmas last year. I haven__'__t watched them all yet, but when I__'__m feeling like shit, the girls always cheer me up. Love that old lady, Sophia. She__'__s a pisser, reminds me of my nonna.__"_

_Maura set aside her soup and sat rigid next to Jane, who began singing along to the Golden Girls theme song in her raspy, out-of-tune alto. __"__Thank you for being a friend, traveled down the road and back again. Your heart is true; you__'__re a pal and a confidant.__"_

"_Jane?__"_

"_Yup.__"_

"_I may be contagious.__"_

"_S__'__okay. Jane Rizzoli has the constitution of a__…__gorilla.__"_

_Maura had never read that gorillas had particularly strong constitutions, but she let it pass._

_Jane roared every time Sophia was on screen, poking the doctor in the ribs. __"__Good one, right, Maur?__"_

_By the third episode, Maura began to relax. She enjoyed Rose__'__s innocent stories about her hometown in Minnesota, Dorothy__'__s sarcasm, and Blanche__'__s over-the-top sensuality. She wondered at the strong friendship between the women. She looked over at Jane, splayed comfortably across her king-sized bed, her dark eyes reflecting the glow of the television, mouth relaxed in a loose smile._

_Jane turned to her. __"__More soup? Tea?__"_

"_I can get it.__"_

"_Nope. I__'__m at your service today and tomorrow if you need me and the day after. Whatever.__"_

_They watched all of the first season while Maura recuperated and the rest of the series, all seven seasons, over the course of the following year. Tuesday evenings was their pizza and television night at Maura__'__s. The pair would snuggle under a blanket on the doctor__'__s sofa, Maura often falling asleep with her head on Jane__'__s shoulder. Friday nights became their Dirty Robber night; drinks with the guys and back to Maura__'__s for a quick show. Sunday evenings found them in Jane__'__s basement apartment in her parent__'__s North End home, watching their show after Rizzoli family dinner. The course of the Golden Girls was the course of their deepening friendship and the seeds of their love. _

"Doctora Eye-lez?" Volga's voice roused her from her reminiscing.

"I'm sorry, Volga. I was thinking about the Golden Girls and how my Jane introduced me to that particular show…please go on." Maura gave the bartender her full attention, hands folded neatly on top of the bar, back straight in her chair.

Volga finished her tale, punctuated as it was with copious vodka and cries of "О, Боже, защити меня." Pleas for the lord to protect her.

When she was done, Maura patted her hand. "Don't worry, Volga. Jane and I will help you. You will be safe. I promise."

"Spasiba, Doctora."

"Please call me _Maura_. We're friends, and if it's not too much trouble, I could use a drink. I've had a narwhal of a morning."

Volga looked confused, but shrugged it off. "Vodka?"

"No, wine; perhaps a nice pinot noir."

"I think you mean you had a whale of a morning, Maura," a slightly accented voice replied.

Maura spun on her chair, her gaze reflected back to her in a pair of mirrored aviator glasses.

"Oh, is that the right term? I suppose I've mixed up my marine mammals. Narwhals are technically whales of the order Cetacea, but within the family of monodontidae, whereas most whales are either balaenidae or balaenopteridae."

"Are you a marine biologist as well as an expert in Czech opera?" Martina Navratilova grinned, showing off a row of large white teeth.

"No. I'm actually a forensic pathologist…for humans, not whales."

"Maura is town doctor." Volga looked as proud as if she herself had graduated summa cum laude from Harvard Medical School.

"Can I buy you that glass of Pinot Noir?" The tennis champion asked.

The doctor blushed, nodding once.

Volga reached behind her for an opened bottle of Jean Foillard Morgon Cote du Py.

"Could you open a new bottle, please?" Maura asked.

Volga waggled her finger and winked. "Very smart lady." She made a big show of uncorking the fresh bottle and presenting it to Maura.

"Very good, Volga, but let's let it breathe for a few minutes."

Martina had moved in closer, resting a casual arm on the back of Maura's chair. "So what happened this morning to make it such a large sea mammal for you? I, myself, had a whale of a night, cleaning up after Ming."

Maura grimaced. "Poor Millie-Joyce, she must be suffering tremendously with veisalgia today."

"Veisalgia?"

"Yes, the unpleasant aftereffects of copious alcohol consumption: cephalalgia, dispepsia, xerostomia…in common parlance, she has hung herself over."

Martina laughed. "Ah, a hangover. No, not Ming. She was up at six jogging on the beach and hitting on any woman who was unlucky enough to cross her path. Has your wine breathed enough? I would like to have a glass with you before the ferry arrives."

Maura checked her watch. "Not yet. Proper aeration will greatly improve the bouquet, but I know a trick from my intern days. After working a 30-hour shift, I wouldn't want to waste half an hour waiting for my wine to breathe. Time works best, but a blender will do in a pinch. Volga, can you do the honors?"

Volga emptied the bottle into her Blendtec and whirred the ruby liquid for thirty seconds before pouring it into two red plastic cups.

Maura frowned at the disposable drinkware.

"Oi, I did not know I was serving the Czarina herself. So sorry." Volga reached under the bar and pulled out a pair of stemmed wine glasses, quickly transferring the liquid into them.

"These are white wine glasses." Maura couldn't help herself.

"Is your girlfriend as…" The tennis champion searched for the right word. "…fastidious as you are?"

"No! Not at all." Maura laughed. "Jane drinks beer from the bottle."

"Yes." Volga added. "And she eated 44 frankenfuters at pool party."

Martina roared.

"It's true." Maura agreed. "We're very different, but I like to think that we complement one another."

Martina pushed her mirrored sunglasses onto her head and raised her glass. "Na zdraví."

"Na zdraví." The doctor repeated, clinking her glass against Martina's.

"No, no, Maura. You must look into my eyes when we toast. It's a Czech custom; if you don't do it right, you will be cursed with seven years of bad sex."

Maura looked into a pair of amused brown eyes. "Na zdraví." She intoned solemnly. "I certainly don't want to curse myself with bad sex. Jane and I are getting married."

She raised her left hand to display her engagement ring, but her hand was bare. She blanched.

"What is wrong, Maura? You lose ring?"

"Oh, I hope not, Volga. This is Prostate Cancer Awareness Day. I spent my morning performing 56 rectal exams."

Martina spit out her wine. "So your ring may be in some guy's ass?"

"No, it's not that bad. Thankfully I'm right handed, but I still need to search through 112 used exam gloves."

"Sounds like your whale of a morning is turning into a beluga of an afternoon." Martina raised her glass. "Hodně štěstí!"

"Thank you." Maura shot back her wine in one unladylike gulp. She slipped from her stool and headed for the exit. "I'll need all the luck I can get."

* * *

"Jane!" Maura burst through the door, sweating from her mad sprint from Cherry's.

"Up here, babe. I'm about to start work on the bed."

Maura flew up the stairs, taking them three at a time like…like a Rizzoli. "Jane, did you take out the garbage?"

"Yup and I washed the dishes and helped Faye and Kaye to the ferry. They're staying at a B&B in Bridgehampton tonight…just in case, so we have the house to ourselves." She winked.

Maura balled her fists in frustration. "The garbage, Jane. Where is it?"

"Probably on a barge back to the mainland. The cute little garbage scooter picked it up hours ago."

"Shit!"

"Ooooh. I love it when you curse."

Maura's face was red and pinched. Her shoulders sagged and she began to cry. Jane wrapped an arm around her shoulders, then both arms, pulling her close against her chest. She rested her lips against the doctor's flushed temple. "Shush, love, it's okay. I have your ring."

"You do?" Maura pulled back and swiped at her damp eyes with the back of her hand.

"D'Fwan found it in your medical waste container. Why he was going through a bag of used rectal exam gloves is a question I don't want to know the answer to."

She reached into her pocket and removed the ring. "Now I get to propose all over again." She dropped to the floor and looked up at Maura's wet eyes, shining sea green behind her tears. "My friend, my lover, my everything, spend the rest of your life with me?"

Maura nodded, new tears welling up in her eyes. She reached out her left hand and Jane slipped the ring onto it, where it belonged.

"Wash your face, baby. We have a V.U.L.V.A. meeting to attend."

* * *

_Hold Her Liquor _was a small, ramshackle cottage on the beach side of the island, a half block from the sandy trail leading into the Sunken Forest. A sagging deck overhung the entrance, laden with plants in terracotta pots and ropy vines of bindweed and greenbrier, woodbine and bittersweet, the latter laden with glossy red berries. Maura pointed out the various flora, giving both their common and scientific names.

Jane grunted. "Someone needs to invest in a set of pruning shears."

"I think it's charming."

"Sure, if you're the Unabomber."

Maura chuckled. She had her ring back and nothing could bother her today. The air was scented with the sea and greenery and something else. She pulled Jane to a stop, sniffing at the air. "I smell something."

"Vulvas?"

"No." She snorted, slapping at Jane's arm. "Animal scat."

They passed under the deck and were greeted by a pair of goats tethered on long lines to the posts supporting the porch. The animals were busy chewing on tufts of ragweed poking out between the wooden slats. Jane bent and scratched the closest animal between her floppy ears. She gave the detective a curious look and a half-hearted ma-a-a-a, then continued rooting between the boards for nourishment.

"She has your eyes, Maur."

Maura frowned, wrinkling her nose.

"I mean the color, like a golden green-gray." Jane amended. "Not the creepy horizontal pupils."

"Why would a lesbian separatist political group have goats in the middle of a vacation town? This is very strange, Jane. Do you remember the case in Alston last year?"

"The satanists? Yeah. You don't think?"

"I don't know what to think. Maybe we should go." Maura grasped her hand and pulled her back toward the walkway.

"No way. At the very least, we have to save these goats."

"Do you have your gun?"

Their whispered conversation was interrupted by the bright voice of Rosemary Clooney; _Mambo Italiano _trumpeted from the right hip pocket of Jane's denim shorts.

"My mother."

"I know. Are you going to answer it?"

"Should I? I haven't called her all week; she's going to be mad. Besides, we have a pair of goats to save."

"Answer the phone."

Jane swiped at the phone, jogging the twenty yards to the shaded entry to the Sunken Forest National Preserve. Maura followed, looking over her shoulder to where the goats peacefully chewed their cud, oblivious to whatever diabolical fate awaited them.

"Hey, Ma. Good to hear your voice."

"Bullshit. If you wanted to hear my voice, you would have called me. The Boston Police Department pays for unlimited texts and talk on that smarty phone of yours, but you haven't done either. You could be dead at the bottom of the ocean for all I'd know."

Jane pulled the phone away from her ear and grimaced. "She's really mad." She mouthed to Maura.

The doctor made a smoothing gesture with her hand.

"Smooth things over. Got it." Jane mouthed.

"I don't know why I didn't call. I've missed you so much."

"Really?"

"Absolutely. Maura and I are getting married. She said yes." Jane blurted, eager to distract Angela with a subject dear to her heart, the wedding of her only daughter.

Angela huffed on the line. "I know and I had to find out on the Facebook instead of from my own daughter."

"What?" Jane frowned at the phone. "I didn't put anything online and neither did Maura. Did you, babe?"

The doctor shook her head, confused.

"You girls were tagged in a photo at some bar by that weirdo tennis player, so I naturally examined it very carefully. I'm very interested in every little detail about my girls. Did you know that on the ipad you can make a picture bigger just by pulling at it with your fingers?"

Jane rolled her eyes. "Yeah, Ma, I knew that."

"I saw the ring on Maura's finger and I've been sitting by my phone ever since. Any minute my Janie's gonna call, I thought. But you didn't."

"I'm sorry, Ma. You shoulda been the first person we told. I suck."

Angela harrumphed across the miles. She wasn't yet satisfied with Jane's apology, some more groveling would be necessary.

"I asked her just the way you suggested. I tied the ring to Jo Friday's collar and told her that I saw a tick. When she bent to look, there it was."

"The tick?" Angela asked.

"No…the ring. I couldn't have come up with a better idea."

"I never said anything about a tick." Angela complained.

"But Jo Friday's collar was your idea, a great idea. You shoulda seen Maura's face. I wish I had taken a picture."

Angela exhaled through her nose. "Fine. I'll be there sometime tomorrow. We have to start making plans."

"There's no rush, Ma. You can make all the plans you like. I'll buy you one of those mother-of-the-bride books with the white lace trim and fancy calligraphy. You can write down all of your ideas and we'll discuss them in detail."

"I already have one, Jane. I've been taking notes since before you got your first period. The book is full, and I am ready to make a wedding."

Maura drew back from her position next to her fianceé. She had been listening with her ear pressed against the side of Jane's face. "Tomorrow?" She mouthed.

Jane shrugged, helpless. "Okay, Ma. Drive carefully."

"Tell her to pee in Connecticut." Maura added. "There are no rest stops on Long Island."

"Maura said to pee in Connecticut and could you bring me some clothes?"

Jane swiped the phone off and tucked it back into her pocket. She looked deflated; her shoulders drooped and her arms hung limply at her sides. She loved her mother, but they practically lived with her. The thought of spending the final week of her much anticipated gay vacation under the same roof with the elder Rizzoli was a letdown. No doubt Angela would pester them nonstop about wedding gowns and cakes, seating arrangements and song lists. She had a book of notes compiled over three decades that they would have to discuss and debate. There would be tears, hopefully only Angela's, and raised voices. It would be a nightmare.

"Sorry, babe. You know how she can be."

Maura rubbed up and down Jane's spine, her strong fingers finding the knots and releasing them, spreading the warm heat of comfort to tense muscles.

"No worries, love. Angela does not affect me the way she does you, and I look forward to planning our wedding."

Jane felt better. "I guess. You think she'll be okay with all of this?" Jane spread her arms, her gesture taking in the entire island and its eccentric inhabitants.

"Of course! We're talking about the woman who threw us a coming-out party replete with a unicorn that farted rainbows."

Jane nodded. "True. Ma deserves a week on the beach. Maybe this is for the best."

"It is. Let's go save those goats."

Maura took her hand, lacing their fingers together, comforted by the metal band of Jane's promise ring rubbing against her palm. They walked the short half block to the cottage with the carved wooden sign,_ Hold Her Liquor. _When they arrived, the pair of goats were gone. The twin tethers remained, tied with a clove hitch to the support post, but the animals were nowhere to be seen.

"Fuck. I hope we're not too late."

Jane rapped three times on the closed front door then pushed her way into the house. A dozen women sat on an ancient corduroy sofa and in folding chairs, balancing paper plates of cheese and crackers on their knees. She scanned their surprised faces; everyone looked familiar, but the only name she knew was Ming.

"Jane! Maura!" The tennis legend sprung from her seat at the very center of the sofa and wrapped them in a bear hug.

"Ming, how did I know you'd be behind this?"

Millie-Joyce peered up at her, owl-like behind her large glasses. "I'm not behind anything, but any group that calls itself Vaginas United is a group for Ming. I'm all for uniting my vagina with any willing lady."

"Where are the goats?" Maura asked.

A chunky woman in cargo shorts stood. "Gertrude and Alice are in the yard. They ate all the grass out front. If I didn't move them, they'd start eating the deck." She stretched out her hand. "I'm Peppermint Patty."

Maura took her hand in both of her own, looking earnestly into her small brown eyes. "You're not going to sacrifice them to satan, are you?"

The woman roared. "Of course not. They're our pets; we make cheese and soap and body lotion from their milk. Have a seat. Help yourself to some cheese. There's also kale dip and quinoa pudding."

"Yummy." Maura introduced herself to the remaining women, a few she had already met during blood pressure screenings on her first day as town doctor, and headed straight for the refreshment table.

"So what exactly is this group about? Are you…activists?"

"Not really." Patty chuckled. "We're a chorus. Vaginas United: Lesbian Voices Arise. We thought it was a clever acronym. Our voices do rise, but not always in tune. Marcia is our choir director."

She waved over a small, timid woman with protruding teeth.

"She's also my partner of 17 years." She wrapped a possessive arm around Marcia's thin shoulders.

"Are you an alto or a soprano?" Marcia asked.

"Alto." Jane rasped. "But I'm not much of a singer."

"None of us are, but we sing anyway for the love of it."

Jane laughed. "Maura and I thought you were some sort of terrorist separatist group."

"Well." Patty rubbed her chin. "We are kind of upset about some of the things that have been happening around the Grove, but we're not strict separatists. There are no men in our chorus."

Marcia laid a hand on her arm. "But they'd be welcome to join. They just never have. Anyone who loves to sing can be a V.U.L.V.A."

"I love to sing." Ming piped in.

"Yes, we heard your _Macho Man_ at Cherry's last night. It's why we invited you to join."

"Damn. I thought I was coming to an orgy."

Maura joined them, her plate laden with goat cheese and kale. "This is delicious, Patty."

"Thank you."

"You're not a political action group?"

"No, but we did erupt into a spontaneous sing-in for you on Monday night when you were refused entrance to the Belvedere to treat your patient."

Jane remembered the small group of people singing "We Shall Overcome" and holding lighted candles outside of the men only hotel.

"And…" Marcia added. "Mercedes swiped the Hot Dog Trophy for you and left it on your doorstep. You should have won that contest."

"Peace out, sista!" A voice called from the end of the sofa. Maura recognized the burly EMT with the Marine Corps tattoo.

"Let's all get naked and raid the Belvedere!" Ming screamed. "A panty raid!"

"Who the hell wants mens' panties?" someone asked.

"I do." Ming was bouncing on her heels as if in anticipation of a serve on the tennis court. "They're much more comfortable, especially when I'm packing."

"That's the truth." Mercedes agreed. "Gimme some tighty whities with an access panel and I'm good to go."

"C'mon, ladies." Ming had already shrugged out of her polo shirt and was unbuttoning her chinos when Maura laid a restraining hand on her arm.

"Why don't we sing a song? Does anyone know the 'Coro di zingari' from _Il Trovatore_? It's perfect for a large group."

Her suggestion was met with silence.

She thought a moment. "How about 'Уж как на небе солнцу красному слава' from Boris Godunov?"

More silence.

Marcia cleared her throat. "We've been working on 'Michael Row Your Boat Ashore,' but we substitute _Michelle_ for _Michael_."

"That's perfect, babe." Peppermint Patty kissed her partner on the cheek. "Ladies, join hands."

Everyone rose and formed a circle around the small refreshment table. Marcia blew a note on a harmonica. "That was a C, or maybe it was a D. Anyway, try to start in the key of C, but it's okay if you can't." She blew the harmonica again and it sounded completely different. "Sopranos begin and altos, you come in after the first line."

"Am I an alto or a soprano?" Maura asked.

"Soprano." Jane squeezed her hand.

"No, I think I'm an alto."

"If you're an alto, then I'm a baritone."

"You may very well be, but I'm singing alto since I'm standing next to you. Please sing in my ear, Jane, to keep me in tune."

They began to sing, fourteen women of all ages and races, holding hands around a simple card table. Some women closed their eyes and swayed gently, others looked around the circle offering encouraging nods to faltering friends. Maura squeezed Jane's hand and the hand of Ming, who stood to her left. She felt part of something and she liked the feeling. Jane liked it too, though she wouldn't have admitted it. She was the first to call for an encore of "Puff the Magic Dragon," and she gladly accepted the solo part in "California Dreamin."

"I like those Earth dykes," she conceded on their walk back to Belly Acres.

"I do too. Maybe we could go to the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival next year."

"Don't push it, Maur."

"We have to bring Faye and Kaye to the next meeting. Those two have V.U.L.V.A. written all over them. Terrorist group! Jeez, I'm always looking for trouble."

Maura rested her head on Jane's shoulder. "No, you're always looking to stop trouble; there's a difference."

Jane pulled her closer. "This feels like a pizza night. Wanna check out the Cherry Grove Pizza shop, see how it measures up to Boston's finest?"

"Sure. Millie-Joyce invited us for fondue, but I suppose we could pass."

"Let's. I'm sure fondue with Ming involves nudity and dripping chocolate, neither of which I mind so long as it's just us."

Maura chuckled. "I'm sure you're right. So pizza and some Netflix?"

"It's a date. What do you want to watch?"

"How about The Golden Girls?"

* * *

Jane wrapped a fluffy white towel around her wet hair and padded into the bedroom. Maura was propped up against the headboard, staring at her Macbook. Her reading glasses slipped down her nose and she absentmindedly pushed them back up. The snifter of cognac she had brought upstairs with her sat untouched on the bedside table.

"Whatcha reading, Maur? A treatise on stomach parasites in decomposing elephant vaginas?"

"No…and that makes no sense, Jane. Stomach parasites would not be found in the vagina of any mammal."

The detective flopped onto the bed and bounced twice. "I fixed the frame. No more squeaking."

"Very good, Jane."

"Do I get a prize?" She waggled her eyebrows, but Maura never looked at her, her eyes remained focused on the laptop resting on her knees.

Jane loosened her towel, allowing one dark nipple to peep above the white terrycloth. She angled her body toward the doctor, certain that her breast was in Maura's peripheral vision.

"Wow, it's a little nipply in here. Maybe I should turn up the heat."

Maura snorted. "You're incorrigible."

"If that's a fancy word for horny, then yes, I am."

"It isn't. It's from the Latin_ corrigere, _to correct. It means…"

"I know what it means. I went to Catholic school for 12 years and got a 1480 on my SATs."

"You did?" Maura took off her glasses. "That's very high. That score would put you in the top 5 percentile of all high school seniors. You could have gone to any university."

Jane shrugged. "I wanted to go to the police academy."

"You could have gone to the academy after college."

"I am a proud graduate of Bunker Hill Community College." Jane doffed an imaginary hat, her other nipple popping free with the gesture. "Besides, my parents still had two kids in Catholic school. I couldn't ask them to pay for my ass for another four years."

Maura bent over and kissed her cheek. "You're a good person, Jane, selfless. That's one of the many reasons I love you."

Jane smiled, her dimples deepening. "So…about that prize? I did fix the bed just like you asked."

"I think you fixed the bed because your mother is coming tomorrow and you'd be embarrassed if she heard us."

Jane groaned. "Ugh, my mother."

"I hope she remembers to bring you some clothes."

"She will."

"I'll email her a copy of the list I prepared for you; the list you completely disregarded when you packed."

Maura minimized her browser and tapped a few keys, before opening it again. She readjusted her glasses and continued reading.

"Wah wah." Jane's voiced descended in the classic tones of epic failure. "I guess I'll go rub one out in the bathroom."

Maura chuckled. "Really, Jane, I think you're spending too much time with Millie-Joyce."

"No way! Do I really sound like Ming?"

"A little bit." Maura softened the blow with a gentle squeeze of her fianceé's bare knee and a nuzzle of her long neck. "You smell like an herb garden."

"Yeah, I bought a bar of soap from the goat dykes. It's made from Alice and Gertie's milk and some crap they collect in the Sunken Forest; pine needles and ferns. It cost me 20 bucks."

"Hmm. The revolution does not come cheap. Goat's milk is high in alpha hydroxy acids and selenium. It's wonderful for your skin."

Maura returned to her reading, holding one finger up to forestall further interruption. Finishing her paragraph, she closed the Macbook and took off her glasses.

"I do have a prize for you after all. It's something from your list of favorite things."

"Cunnilingus?"

"No. Guess again."

"Is it my family? My mother is coming; is she bringing my brothers?"

"No."

"Red Sox tickets?"

"No."

"I get to watch you sleep?"

"No. Police work, Jane. We have a bona fide mystery to solve. You get to do your gumshoe thing."

Jane raised a questioning eyebrow. "You're not taking Ming up on her idea to raid the Belvedere, are you? We know Dennis left that shit on our deck. I don't feel the need to search his room for a jar of strawberry jam and a package of tofu dogs."

"No. That's hardly a mystery."

Maura reopened the Macbook and scrolled to the top of the page she had been reading. She passed it to Jane.

"Volga writes fan fiction."

"About what? Boris and Natasha?"

Maura tilted her head in confusion. "Who?"

"An old cartoon, not important. Do you want me to read this? Will I go mad and rip out my own eyes from all the grammatical mistakes?"

"Her written English isn't nearly as halting as her spoken. She's quite eloquent in certain passages."

Jane squinted at the screen. "'Love on the Lanai' by BlorothyLuvr." She read. "What is this, babe?"

"Well…" Maura raised then lowered her lecture finger. The workings of femmeslash hardly warranted a professorial stance. "Fan fiction is a genre in which devotees of various existent media elaborate on their chosen…"

"I know what fan fiction is, Maur. I read just about every _Cagney and Lacey_ story written while I was in the academy. Back then they were printed on xeroxed sheets and traded through the mail from the fan club. I never ordered them myself, but they were always lying around the women's locker room. When I got my hands on a new story, I'd rush home and devour it."

Maura smirked. "Did you read them in your twin bed under your Leather Tuscadero poster?"

"Yeah. I know…closet case."

"And these stories featured a romantic pairing between the two female protagonists?"

Jane blushed, remembering her twenty year old self weeping over Christine Cagney finally declaring her love for Marybeth. "Um, yeah, mostly, but some of them had Chris hook up with that douche Isbecki."

Maura reached for her cognac and took a small sip, running her pink tongue across her lips, catlike, to catch an errant drop. Jane watched, entranced. She placed the snifter on the table and turned back to Jane.

"Volga writes _Golden Girls_ fan fiction. Her chosen pairing is Dorothy and Blanche, hence her nom-de-plume, Blorothyluvr."

Jane covered her face and groaned. "I don't want to read that. Is it erotic?"

"Very."

Jane moaned again. "How is this a mystery?"

"Well…" Maura took another sip of cognac. "She is being tormented by another writer."

"There are two Blorothy advocates?"

"No. This other writer firmly believes that Dorothy does not belong with Blanche, but with Rose."

Jane grimaced. "That may be even worse…Betty White in a strap-on."

"Dorothy always wears the strap-on." Maura corrected. "I imagine Jane Rizzoli being very much like Dorothy in 25 years. You're both tall and Italian with deep voices and forceful personalities. You both have overbearing Italian mothers. You're both fond of polyester pant suits…Shall I go on?"

"No." Jane pulled the towel up over her exposed breasts. "Babe, if I was a guy, my dick would have gone soft at that thought."

Maura poked her in the ribs. "Dorothy Petrillo Zbornak was a very sexy woman. I imagine Blanche and Rose would fight each other for a place in her bed."

Jane rubbed at her eyes with the heels of her hands. "O…kay. So what's the mystery again?'

"Volga's nemesis…"

"Is she called Rosothyluvr?"

"Yes! Rosothyluvr69, in fact."

"Eww. Go on."

"Rosothyluvr69 posts nasty reviews to Volga's stories and Volga in turn posts nasty reviews to her rival's stories. They were…enemends. Is that the right word? Enemies, but friendly?"

"Frenemies."

"Yes, frenemies. But this past month, Volga began a new story in which Rose dies and Blanche and Dorothy come to realize their love as they mourn their friend. Rosothyluvr69 became enraged by this and has been sending death threats."

Jane closed the Macbook. "Big deal, so some freak on the internet is trolling her. The woman probably lives on the other side of the world. She's not actually going to kill Volga."

"Ah, but she doesn't." Maura reopened the laptop. "Rosothyluvr69 posted a new story last week. It's called 'Love on the Run.' In this story, Rose accidentally kills Blanche by feeding her poisoned cheesecake on her birthday…"

"That doesn't sound like an accident."

"Read the story. Rose isn't very bright; she mistakes arsenic for almond extract. It's written as an accident. Instead of calling the police, Dorothy declares her love for Rose and they flee under assumed names, to Cherry Grove."

Jane shrugged, unconvinced. "Cherry Grove is well-known as a gay destination. It doesn't mean anything."

Maura sighed. "There's more. Volga pointed out a dozen instances where Rosothyluvr69 wrote about something that she could only have known if she was here. Volga had breakfast at Island Breeze on Tuesday. She ordered two poached eggs and a pork chop with pickles and a side of pumpkin pancakes. Rose orders the same breakfast in chapter 3 of Rosothyluvr's story."

"Blech. That's repulsive, but it could be a coincidence. Is that particular meal on the menu?"

"No, it isn't. In chapter four, Dorothy sliced her thumb open cutting vegetables and had to get seven stitches from the town doctor, who is described as a busty redhead with an earnest demeanor."

Jane snickered. "You're not really a redhead, more of a strawberry blonde, I'd say."

"I stitched up Volga's thumb this week."

"Seven stitches?"

"Yes."

Jane sat up, pulling the Macbook closer. "What else?"

"The painting hanging over Rose and Dorothy's bed is the same one that hangs in Volga's kitchen—a frog in a clown suit holding three red balloons."

"So Rosothyluvr may have broken into her house?"

"Yes. Dorothy's bathing suit is the same one that Volga owns, the contents of their refrigerators are the same, they use the same face cream…"

"This is starting to sound creepy."

"I know." Maura ran her fingers across the trackpad, bringing up most the recent chapter of 'Love on the Run'. "Volga confided that she had a sexual encounter last night…"

"With Ming?" Jane interrupted.

"She didn't say. But, this morning Rosothyluvr posted a new chapter describing that act in vivid detail. Volga is certain that she was watched. She thinks her nemesis has set up a blind in the dunes with a pair of binoculars and perhaps a sniper rifle. She's terrified."

"I don't blame her. Does Olga know?"

"No, not yet. She doesn't want to frighten her. She's hoping we can find this person before she has to tell her."

"Okay. I'll call Frost first thing tomorrow and get him to do his magic with the website's servers. Maybe we can get a name or at least an email address for Rosothyluvr. I'll shadow her tomorrow; see if anyone is paying too much attention or looks suspicious."

Maura nodded. "The 69 could be a reference to mutual simultaneous cunnilingus, but it could also be a clue to the author's identity. Perhaps she was born in 1969."

"Good thinking, Maur. That would make her mid-forties. I'll keep that in mind when I 'do my gumshoe thing.'"

Jane closed the Macbook. "Speaking of mutual simultaneous cunnilingus…"

Maura opened the laptop. "Read the stories, Jane."

"Do I have to?"

"Would you investigate any other crime without reading the case files?"

"No." She sighed and began reading. "Dorothy Sbornak purchased two large tubes of K-Y jelly at the Seven-Eleven in downtown Miami…"

Maura finished her cognac and reached for the battered copy of _50 Shades of Gray_. "Besides, we didn't like 69. It's theoretically sound, but incommodious in practice."


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: Sorry for the delay...I just can't seem to write a normal 3500 word chapter any more. I want to take a moment to thank my dear friend, Margaret, for wading through pages and pages of my writing and making it tighter as well as bucking up my confidence when it wanes. You're the best, Marg. Also, a shout out to my dear gf of 21 years for thinking everything I do is wonderful and my buddy Billy for coming up with the brilliant acronym O.R.G.A.S.M. years ago when we were teenage radicals. Looks like we will be renting a share on Cherry Grove this summer after being absent for a decade...party time, my friends! **

* * *

Jane rapped three times on the door to the clinic's examination room then twice more for good measure. Her impatient hand was set to knock again when the door was opened by D'Fwan, no longer in his starched white nurse's uniform, but in a white cotton sari with a blue border. A matching headscarf draped loosely over his brow flowed down his back; the distinctive habit of a nun in the order of the Missionaries of Charity.

Her grimace was met by the practiced raising of a manicured eyebrow. "Medical emergency, Detective?"

"No. I'm just a little taken aback; twelve years of Catholic school left me wary of nuns."

"I bet you were a rebellious child."

"You'd win that bet."

He crossed his arms over a powerful chest. "No worries, Jane, Mother Teresa founded a nursing order, not a teaching one. I will not hit you with a ruler or paddle your bottom, no matter how much you beg me to."

"What's with the change in uniform?"

The nurse shrugged. "Partially boredom, partially the fact that I could be relaxing in the nude, sipping a mojito poolside at the Belvedere and watching the boys flex their muscles…my work here is charity and penance; I should look the part."

Jane squeezed his shoulder. "You sure do. You made me flash back to ninth grade algebra. Sister Thomas Aquinas caught me chewing gum and made me wear it stuck to the end of my nose all day. Is Maura with a patient?"

"No. We haven't had one all morning. Strange for a Saturday; with all the day trippers coming over there's usually a few sunburns or a case of poison ivy. The boys roll around in the Meat Rack and get so carried away, they don't know what they're rolling in. Dr. Argentina and I removed over a hundred thorns from a hapless gentleman's derriere on the Fourth of July."

"Ouch."

"Mmm-hmm, he was seeing stars all right, and I'm not talking about the patriotic kind."

He stepped aside and the detective entered the small exam room. It was empty, but Jane could hear the sound of laughter from the office beyond. Three coffee mugs sat atop a neat cherry wood desk. Maura and Faye, in matching burgundy scrubs were huddled over a Scrabble board.

Jane peered at the string of letters, jutting off at right angles and crossing one another from corner to corner. She rubbed her eyes and looked closer. Dropping into an empty chair, she looked a third time.

"Maybe I do need to see a doctor. I think I've developed a case of dyslexia. I can't read a freakin' thing on that board."

Maura reached across the desk and took her hand. "No, love, I can assure you that you're perfectly fine. We're playing in Greek.'

"Oh." She thought for a moment then turned to Faye. "How can you play if you can't see the board?"

The older physician smiled. "I can see it in my mind. Maura and D'Fwan set up my tiles and call out the graphed coordinates of every word they play. I've beat them twice already."

D'Fwan sat demurely next to Jane, crossing his muscular legs. "I'm catching up. I just played κλανιά for a triple word score."

"That's why we were laughing, Jane." Faye explained. "κλανιά is the Greek word for _fart_."

Jane released the soft hand resting in her own, a fit of laughter shaking her shoulders. "I knew it! There is absolutely nothing on this earth funnier than a fart; even nerds can't resist its power."

She wiped her eyes and turned to D'Fwan. "I wouldn't have pegged you as a nerd, though."

"Why, because I'm black?"

"No! Urkel, Obama, Carlton Banks, my partner Frost…some of the biggest nerds in the world are black dudes. You just seem…cool."

The nursing nun smiled. "I am cool. In fact, I spent one exquisitely cool year living with a hunk named Stavros on the island of Mykonos. He had the body of Heracles and eyes the color of the Aegean. That's where I learned my Greek, and I don't mean only the language."

The women smiled. "What happened to Stavros?

"Alas, it was not meant to be." D'Fwan sighed theatrically. "His mother made him marry a nice girl from his village, and I made my way back to New York. I still get a Christmas card. He has eleven daughters; can you believe it?"

The phone clipped to Jane's belt loop coughed in a burst of static. Kaye's gruff voice spit out of the speaker. "Lacey, can you read me? Over."

Jane freed the phone and raised it to her mouth. "I read you, Cagney. Over."

"Elvis has left the building. She's on the move. Over."

"Coordinates? Over."

"Heading southeast toward the ferry dock. The boat is coming in, looks packed. Over."

Jane frowned. "Anyone tailing her? Over."

"That's a negative. Over."

"Proceed with caution. B.O.L.O. Angela Rizzoli, 60, Caucasian, lots of luggage, big frilly mother- of-the-bride book clutched in her talons. Over."

The sound of Kaye's laughter bubbled through the speaker accompanied by staccato bursts of white noise. "Got it, Jane…uh, Lacey, I have a photo of your mother…the suspect, on my phone. I'll radio if she disembarks. Out."

Faye leaned back in her chair. "It's good to hear her laughing. Thank you, Jane, for letting her be a cop again. Yesterday was a difficult day. Annaliese cried her eyes out when we left her, but Kaye cried even more. Despite outward appearances, she's much softer than I am."

Maura wrapped an arm around her friend's waist and the older woman rested her head on Maura's shoulder. "It's for the best."

"I do hope so." She sniffled once and sat up in her chair, her perfect posture returning along with her good cheer. "So, Jane, how did Kaye convince you to play Lacey to her Cagney? I'm certain you both wanted to be the…more assertive character."

Jane shrugged. "No convincing. Kaye outranks me; she's a captain."

The phone vibrated in Jane's hand. "The ferry has departed. The subject was not on board. I am following Elvis to her home for a nap. Over."

"I read you. We'll rendezvous in fifteen on the beach. Time to search the dunes for our perp's lair. Over."

"Did you obtain the info from our C.I.s? Over."

"Er…not yet. Out." Jane returned the phone to her belt loop. "Shit. Where the hell is my mother? She's not answering her phone or responding to texts. I'm beginning to worry."

Maura glanced at the silver Tag Heuer on her left wrist. "It's just one o'clock. Even if she left at dawn, she may still be on the road. It's a summer weekend; traffic is bound to be difficult."

Jane fidgeted with her ring, her legs jittering against the floorboards. "I'm nervous."

"I can see that. I'm certain that Angela is fine."

"Yeah, I know, but you'd be just as nervous if your mother was joining us on vacation for a week."

Maura swallowed hard, the lukewarm sip of coffee seeming to stick in her throat. Her pupils dilated. "My mother…"

"Yeah, Constance. Have you called her lately?"

The doctor flushed. "No. I never know precisely where she is; she could just as easily be in Jakarta as in Jacksonville. With the time difference, it's hard to find the right…"

"Maura," Jane growled a warning. "Hives. Big itchy red pustules that will interfere with our sexy times."

Maura swallowed again, absently scratching at the blemish-free skin of her bare neck. "I haven't called her…but I will. Tonight." She let out a breath.

"Good. I doubt you have to worry about Constance rushing to Fire Island to hasten us to the altar."

"That's true. My mother has her own life. When we set a date, she will pencil it into her schedule, but she's no Angela Rizzoli."

"No." Jane took her hand. "Thank God. We only need one Angela in our lives."

D'Fwan changed the subject. "What's all this about code names and confidential informants? If there's a mystery in Cherry Grove, D'Fwan can be a naughty detective as well as a nurse. I have a lovely tweed skirt and Sherlock Holmes hat hanging in my closet."

Jane filled him in about Volga and her cyber stalker, the threats against her life and the measures she and Kaye were taking to ensure her safety.

"Volga hasn't been out of our sight since she got up this morning. I waited for her in front of her house and watched her eat breakfast with Olga at Island Breeze, tagged along while she did inventory at her three bars, nursed a Dr. Pepper while she waited on customers in Cherry's…I even cleared the bathroom and stood sentry outside the door while she pooped. Kaye joined me when she and Faye arrived on the 10 o'clock ferry."

"Anyone suspicious?" The nurse asked.

"Not really. There was a woman at the bar in Cherry's who was typing away on a laptop, but Kaye got a peek at her screen; she was posting a personal ad on Plenty of Fish."

"Did the personal say, 'Dorothy looking for my Rose?'"

Jane laughed. "Good one, Maur. No, but I wish it had. She was a bit younger than our suspect profile anyway."

"So, who is your confidential informant? Maybe I could meet with them. I'll be discreet." D'Fwan offered.

"Is there anything discreet about a man in a tweed skirt and a Sherlock Holmes hat?"

"We're in Cherry Grove, the rules of discretion are different here. Besides, I can go places that you cannot on account of your vagina…the Belvedere, the darkest recesses of the Meat Rack."

It was true. D'Fwan was a man and as such, had access to the shadowy underbelly of Fire Island. The thought that their culprit could be male had not crossed Jane's mind, but it was possible. For all she knew, there was a Golden Girl fetish among Cherry Grove's drag community; some older queens may very well dress as Blanche and Rose, Dorothy and Sophia. Perhaps Volga's killing off of a beloved character in her story was enough to push the man over the edge toward threats and even murder.

"Okay, you're in."

D'Fwan clapped his hands. "Can I pick a code name?"

"Sure."

He thought for a moment. "I'll be Kojak." His eyes grew dreamy. "I love a Greek man sucking on a lollypop."

"Okay, Kojak. I'm Lacey and Kaye is Cagney. Volga is code name Elvis. Give me your phone and I will program our numbers into it. Your first order of business is to make inquiries within the drag community. See if anyone dresses like a character from the Golden Girls."

"Or if anyone is a fiction writer, a journalist, poet…" Faye added.

"Good thinking." Maura stood. "I think it's time to close the office. Shall we leave the Scrabble board in place and continue tomorrow?" She turned to her fianceé. "Don't forget 69, Jane."

D'Fwan's eyebrows shot up. "Dr. Isles, I'm shocked." He laid a hand against his chest.

"The number, not the sexual position." Maura hastily added. "Our suspect's screen name is Rosothyluvr69. The number could refer to a date of birth; for example, my America Online address is MDIsles73."

"You still use AOL? I thought that was only for octogenarians."

"I think you're right, D'Fwan. I'm a septuagenarian and I've already moved on to Gmail." Faye laughed. "What about addresses? Are there any houses numbered 69 on the island?"

D'Fwan thought a moment. "I'm sure there are, and the Belvedere has a room number 69 on every floor."

Jane cleared her throat. "This is where our confidential informants can help." She looked directly at her future wife.

"Me?" Maura asked, confused. "I don't have any information to share."

Jane knew her phrasing would have to be just right; she would be asking Maura to take a stroll in the gray area between unethical and moral. Maura did not like anything that was not clearly black or white. She cleared her throat again and cracked her knuckles. Maura was looking at her through narrowed eyes.

"Jane? Are you hiding something?'

"Nope."

"Your tell gives you away. You always crack your knuckles when you're thinking of a way to lie to me without lying to me."

Jane stood and crossed her arms, shoving her guilty hands into her armpits. "Fine. I want to have a look at your records, the clinic's records. I know you and D'Fwan have been entering everything into some computer database. Can you do a search and tell me which of your patients were born in 1969?"

Maura's mouth fell open. "No. Those records are confidential. It would be a violation of HIPAA law to share them with anyone without the patient's written consent. You know that, Jane." She shot Jane a wounded look that made the nearly six-foot detective feel two feet tall.

"But, babe, I don't care about medical information, who has an ostomy bag or a third nipple. I just need dates of birth."

"Maura…" Faye, who had remained silent during the exchange, spoke up. "I have no problem turning a blind eye to such a request." She laughed softly at her own choice of words. "If we were in an episode of Law and Order, this would be where we leave the files on the desk and walk out of the room for a minute."

Maura licked her lips and played with the ring on her finger, her own tells; she was wavering.

"Maur?"

"I can't do it, Jane. I'm a physician and these are my patients."

Jane nodded. "I understand."

"Are you angry?"

"No. You are the most honest and responsible person I know. Your integrity just makes me love you more." She kissed the top of the doctor's head and Maura relaxed into her, resting her cheek in the hollow of Jane's prominent clavicle. The detective smelled of turned earth and cedar, vetiver and sweet cream; the lingering scents of her shower with the handmade goat milk soap, with just a hint of her own peppery skin beneath.

Jane pulled her closer, just as Kaye's voice sputtered out from the phone on her hip. "Lacey, where are you? Over."

Maura released her and Jane fumbled for her phone. "On my way, Cagney. Over."

"Bring me a beer. Patrolling the beach is thirsty work. Over."

"You got it. Any sign of our unsub? Over."

"That would be a negative. Out."

Faye made her way around the desk, hands stretched out in front of her, careful not to knock into the file cabinets or upset the Scrabble board. When she cleared the furniture, Maura took her hand and led her out of the office and through the small exam room.

"Faye, can I treat you to a nice glass of Chardonnay and a salad at Island Breeze?"

"That sounds lovely."

"D'Fwan, will you join us?"

"Another time, ladies. I have a date with a speedo and my Sherlock Holmes hat. I'll be at the pool in the Belvedere gathering intelligence."

When the two physicians were safely out of earshot, he turned to Jane. "I'm not a doctor and I don't give a rat's tit about no HIPAA law, especially when a woman's life may be at stake. Let's go get you those names."

* * *

The town was crowded with Saturday tourists; same-sex couples who strolled hand-in-hand through the busy downtown, eating ice cream and window shopping at the half-dozen stores that sold everything from rainbow spangled bikinis and pride beads to Swarovski crystal figurines and Lenox dinnerware. The residential walks were swarmed with day-trippers, admiring the quaint beachside architecture, snapping pictures and pointing out their favorite cottages.

Every ferry that arrived belched forth hundreds of people loaded down with beach gear, toting coolers and portable grills. Bass-heavy dance music from the Ice Palace warred with the more complex rhythms of Motown emanating from Cherry's. Both bars were jammed full of revelers. Short-haired women in cargo shorts and tanks danced next to spandex-clad drag queens, young men in polo shirts with the collars turned up, preppy-style, leaned over railings smoking cigarettes and chatting with heavily tattooed young women. The line at the pizza shop stretched nearly to the ferry dock and grew even longer as sun-worshipers made their way from the ocean, burnt and smiling, for a midday meal.

Maura threaded her way through the crowds, Faye holding tightly to her arm. She painted a tableau with words for the elder physician; a couple of indeterminate sex who had stepped off of the walkway to share a kiss, a handsome male couple, one pushing a double stroller, the other grasping the legs of a small girl who sat atop his shoulders, a dozen lesbians in pink breast-cancer-survivor tees passing out pink ribbons outside of the tiny post office, Butthole-Fly in his silk kimono tottering on wooden sandals next to a platinum blonde drag queen who must have been seven feet tall in his stiletto pumps, a pair of teenage girls, holding hands and gaping in delighted wonder at the queer world around them.

They stopped at the entrance to Island Breeze. Olga stood in the doorway clutching a clipboard and taking down the names of prospective diners. Maura caught her eye and waved, signaling that she wanted a table for two.

"There is long wait, Doctors, but I put you on top of the list. As soon as those two pay their check, you sit." She gestured to a couple at a small table in the corner who sat gazing into each other's eyes, an untouched plate of disco fries between them.

"Thank you, Olga. Is your sister in Cherry's today?"

The chubby woman looked confused. "Sister? My sister Svetlana is in Brighton Beach. Her husband, Yuri, has the cancer. Chernobyl. Very sick. Any day now she will call and we have to go to funeral." She shook her head sadly and turned to another diner. "Half hour wait for inside table, a little longer for outside."

True to her word, Olga sat the pair at the next available table. Maura followed the harried woman with her eyes, taking in the close cropped grey hair, the pale blue eyes, the weak chin under a heavy jaw. She wished Volga was here for comparison. She turned to Faye, a question on her lips, then bit it back. Her friend would be of no help assessing visual clues.

Faye was carefully taking inventory of the tabletop, feeling for knife and fork, water glass and pepper mill, memorizing everything she touched and its place so she could eat without fear of spilling her drink or pouring salt into her coffee. When she had arranged the contents of their table to her satisfaction, she sighed and rested her hands in her lap.

"Is Jane's mother so very terrible, Maura?" She asked.

"No, not at all. Angela is a bit…invasive, but she means well. Jane lived at home much too long, so her mother never learned to let go. Do you know that until we moved in together, Angela was still doing her laundry, cleaning her apartment, and cooking all of her meals?"

"Typical Italian mother." Faye laughed. "Kaye's mother cooked and prepared dinner for her every night even after we were living together. She'd ride the subway from Brooklyn and ring our apartment door with a tray of lasagna or a tupperware container of pasta e fagiole as if we were incapable of feeding ourselves, or more likely that my bland American food would poison her only child."

Maura nodded her head, forgetting that her friend could not pick up on her nonverbal agreement. "Angela mistrusts my cooking as well, but I don't take offense. If it wasn't for her meddling, Jane and I would still be merely best friends, each harboring a secret love, afraid to share our feelings."

"That's wonderful, Maura. Kaye's mother never acknowledged our relationship. Even after Tom was born, I was just the kind roommate who was helping her daughter raise her illegitimate child." The older doctor sighed. "She was a different generation. Does your mother love Jane?"

Maura grimaced at the thought of her mother. She owed Constance a phone call. She would be agreeable to the news of their formal engagement, but there would be no lace-covered mother-of-the-bride book, no giddy talk of dresses and cakes, no heated arguments about seating plans and venues. Constance loved her, but she was not the same sort of mother as Angela Rizzoli.

"Maura?"

"Oh. Yes, she knows that Jane makes me happy, and I suppose that's enough for her."

They ordered a bottle of Mer Soleil Chardonnay and an arugula salad, topped with plump strawberries, slivered almonds and crumbled gorgonzola. Maura glanced nervously at the woman across from her. She had eaten enough meals with Faye and her wife to observe the unobtrusive way that Kaye aided her spouse; cutting her food, placing her drink in her hands, anticipating her needs before they were verbalized. She debated offering her assistance, but Faye was fine; her hands moved assuredly to her utensils and she ate without issue.

Maura relaxed, sipping the pale liquid in her glass. Her tongue flickered briefly across her lips. "Delicious. Good choice, Faye. I taste pineapple and toasted coconut."

Faye sipped from her own glass. "Mmm, banana, mango, lemon meringue pie."

Maura tasted again. "You're palate is remarkable. I taste all those flavors." She laughed. "Jane would say we were full of shit. She'd say it tastes like wine."

"Kaye would say the exact same thing."

The growing crowd of people outside of the window heralded the arrival of the next ferry. Dozens of little red wagons lined the pier in anticipation of carrying provisions for a celebratory summer weekend to cottages across the span of the town. Maura scanned the crowd and caught sight of her future wife leaning against a piling, her wild dark hair blowing in the bay breeze, her habitual scowl on her face as she watched the approaching boat.

"What's that commotion outside?" Faye asked between bites of arugula.

"The ferry is docking. Hopefully Angela will be aboard and Jane can stop worrying."

Maura drank her wine and watched the tall form of her fianceé pacing the pier, frowning as passenger after passenger disembarked. When the boat was empty, she stalked on board and exited after a moment, shaking her head as if she had expected her mother to be sleeping on one of the white metal benches like a child left behind on a school bus.

"No Angela." Maura announced.

"Are you concerned?"

"Not especially. It would be just like Anglea to make Jane worry because she didn't call her for five days."

"Italian mothers." Faye nodded her head, understanding completely.

The doctors agreed to walk off their modest lunch. Skirting the bustling town hub, they headed east following the bay toward the Meat Rack and the Pines. Within a block the sounds of dance music and human voices receded, replaced by the gentle lapping of water and the whistling chirps of small seabirds.

"Is that a sparrow, Maura?" Faye asked, cocking her head to listen.

"I believe it's a piping plover. Their breeding habitat here on Fire Island is covered by the Endangered Species Act."

"Ah. I was quite the birdwatcher when I was younger. When Kaye was courting me, we spent hours in Central Park's Rambles on the trail of the elusive red-throated loon and northern pintail. It was years later that she admitted she found it unbearably boring."

Maura laughed. "The things we do for love; Jane took me to see a performance of the Peony Pavilion and sat through all 22 hours of it over the course of 4 evenings. Later I overheard her tell her brother that it sounded like cats in heat, but she told me she enjoyed it. I wish she had admitted the truth after the first night; I found it taxing to my eardrums as well."

Faye squeezed her arm. "Chinese opera is not for everyone."

They passed the Belvedere and Maura described the ornate hotel for her friend. "It's baroque, but not classically so; the color scheme is not unlike the pavilion at Catherine's palace, but elongated and out of proportion, a Disney version. The architect seems to have added turrets and cupolas haphazardly. It's truly awful."

A pair of men in tiny, form-fitting swimsuits exited the hotel and waved to the two women. "You should see the inside, ladies. It's like Michelangelo vomited after blowing Andy Warhol." They giggled and strode off toward the entrance to the Meat Rack.

"We'll never see the inside." Maura took Faye's hand and the women continued on their leisurely walk.

"Never say never!" Millie-Joyce Ming popped out from behind a broad holly tree. She was dressed in her Wimbledon whites and clutching a sheaf of papers in her hand.

"Is that you, Millie-Joyce?" Faye reached out into the empty air in front of her and Ming grabbed her hand, pulling her in for a hug.

"I was set to invade this place yesterday, but the V.U.L.V.A. collective held me back. These lesbians are like borg; no action without debate and consensus and processing of feelings. No one just gets up and does anything."

Faye patted the tennis legend on the shoulder. "You're a lone wolf howling in the forest, Millie-Joyce. I hear you, and your soulful baying is sweet music to my ears. I was active in women's liberation in the '70s and I can attest that very little was done at our meetings save the writing of manifestos, which were never acted upon."

Ming nodded, waving the papers in her hand. "I tried feminism too, but I had better luck picking up straight chicks in the supermarket than scoring with any of those sourpusses. I'm starting my own radical dyke group. I'm calling it O.R.G.A.S.M." She placed a flyer in Faye's hand.

The blind woman passed it to Maura who read it. "Organized Radical Gays Advocating Severe Measures! We demand: Access to the Belvedere, A Women's Cruising Area in the Meat Rack, Topless Karaoke at Cherry's."

Beneath the writing was a crudely drawn caricature of Ming herself, her large bubble head with oversized glasses dwarfed her tiny nude body. In one hand she gripped a broken tennis racket; in the other, a pair of testicles, held aloft as if she were preparing to serve the discorporated scrotum at her opponent.

Maura frowned. "Using the universal term 'gay' implies that both male and female homosexuals are advocating for this…agenda. Perhaps you should change 'gay' to 'lesbian.'"

Faye shook her head. "No, no, dear, O.R.L.A.S.M. doesn't have the same impact, does it?"

Ming snatched back the flyer and ripped it in half. She shuffled through her papers and pulled out another, passing it to Maura.

"C.L.I.T. Crazed Lesbians in Tandem! Let us into the Belvedere! We demand space to cruise in the Meat Rack! Topless Titties in Town!"

"Much better, Millie-Joyce." Faye reached for her arm, but her grasp landed square on Ming's left breast, setting off peals of squealing laughter from the tennis champion.

"Is that Millie-Joyce Ming, Barbara?"

"It must be, Joan, or else some sad queen is trolling the island in Wimbledon drag."

Jane's fairy godfathers emerged from the Belvedere, leaning tipsily on each other. Miss Pussy was conspicuously absent from their arms. It was the first time Maura had seen the couple without their beloved fur gayby.

"Where's your cat?" The doctor asked, concerned that the ancient animal had finally expired.

"Miss Pussy isn't welcome at the Belvedere. She has two strikes against her; she's female and, well…a pussy."

"Ha!" Ming snarled. "Discrimination extends into the animal world." She shoved her hand down the front of her tennis skirt and emerged with a sharpie pen. Uncapping it, she scrawled another line on her flyer. "All pussies should be welcome everywhere in Cherry Grove, two legged as well as four!"

"Brava, Ms. Ming." Joan and Barbara clapped. "We are tremendous fans of yours. We were there in Houston in 1973 for your historic victory in the the Battle of the Sexes. Despite being men, we rooted for you and when you won, we celebrated with a bottle of Moët in our hotel room."

"Really?" Ming grinned, then launched herself at the elderly gentlemen, hugging them tightly.

"Of course it helped that your opponent wasn't at all a hottie. Had you played against that delicious Jimmy Connors, we may have been cheering for the other side." Joan added.

Barbara slapped at him half-heartedly. "We followed your career for decades. Every year we took the Metro North Railroad down to Penn Station for the Virginia Slims Championships. We were a pair of roosters in the hen house, I'm afraid. Madison Square Garden was rife with lesbians."

"Those were the days." Ming wiped a tear from her eye. "I could randomly lob a ball into the stands and get laid by whichever woman caught it."

Faye reached for and found Maura's hand. "It's hard to imagine a time when a cigarette company sponsored a sporting event. 'We've come a long way, baby'; wasn't that their motto?"

Ming turned serious. "They were the only company willing to support women's tennis. I owe them my career." Her expression changed again. "That's why I continue to support Virginia Slims. I like to smoke a cigarette after I come…so I still have a pack a week habit."

Maura did the math in her head. Very impressive; that pack of cigarettes would last her and Jane nearly a month, and that would be with both of them smoking.

"We're headed to Ice Palace now. Rumor has it that Volga and Olga have invested in two new go-go boys to dance by the pool. They're trying to lure us old queens away from the Belvedere. We'd be glad to hang your flyer on the bulletin board there."

"These two boys had better be more attractive than the last pair; toothless and paunchy and not a day under fifty." Barbara rolled his eyes.

"You exaggerate, darling. The one with the body rash had at least six teeth."

Ming handed over a flyer, then pulled it back, adding another line to the bottom of the page. "Dancing GIRLS at Ice Palace."

"Be careful what you wish for, Ms. Ming." Barbara carefully folded the paper and placed it into the fanny pack he wore around his waist. "Volga and Olga are notoriously cheap. Their idea of dancing girls will probably be themselves, rubbed down with bacon fat in Soviet-era bathing costumes."

Ming's blue eyes grew wide behind her lenses. "Damn! I sure hope so."

Maura looked helplessly between the speakers; she was nearly certain that sarcasm was in play, but to what extent she was uncertain. She wished she could leap into a conversation with a witty bon mot, but she didn't know where to begin. The godfathers and Ming were expertly volleying quips through the air while she stood gaping. She was prepared to spit out statistics about the higher percentage of cigarette smokers among the LGBTQ community, but the others had already dropped that topic and were discussing body rashes and dentition. She searched her mind for a fun fact about psoriasis and was about to suggest that the unfortunate dancing boy might benefit from a long soak in a natural sulfur spring when the conversation had moved onto bacon fat. Bacon fat brought to mind data on heart attacks. Before she could raise her lecture finger, the trio had touched on soviet bathing suits, reminding Maura of the health benefits derived from the Russian culture of the Banya.

She shut her mouth and looked silently at her shoes, a pair of Chloé ballerina flats in cloud gray, baby soft with hand-stitched seams. If Jane were here, she'd be right in the mix of the conversation and she'd pull Maura along, coax an opinion out of her, let her in on the joke.

"Maura, are you alright?" Faye squeezed her hand. "You've grown so quiet."

"Yes, fine. I've been trying to think of something humorous say, but I'm afraid that's not my forte."

"Humor is subjective, my dear. Kaye can spend hours laughing over The Three Stooges knocking each other over the head and all I can think is that someone is bound to become concussed."

Maura smiled, her confidence returning. "Millie-Joyce, I have an idea."

The chattering trio grew silent. Three heads turned her way.

Maura licked her lips. "Instead of posting your demands and hoping for redress via deus ex machina, why not be proactive? Challenge the male population of the Grove to a Battle of the Sexes. If the women win…"

"Hot buttery nipple clamps!" Ming interrupted. "I love a good competition. Gimme back that flyer." She gestured to Barbara. "I'm going back to the drawing board. By drawing board I mean, I'm going to rub one out on the diving board at _Swings Both Ways, _then I'll smoke a cigarette and make up a new flyer."

She grabbed Maura around the waist, dipped her and kissed her full on the lips before sprinting away toward the beach side of the island.

"Don't worry, Maura dear, we won't tell Detective Jane. She strikes me as the jealous type." Joan patted her shoulder.

"And she carries a gun." Barbara added.

* * *

Jane jotted the names and addresses on a sheet from Maura's prescription pad and rocketed out of the door. D'Fwan had searched the database for the current year and came up with two women who were born the year that humankind first walked on the moon and half a million rock enthusiasts rolled in the mud to the sounds of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and The Who in Woodstock, New York. Two women currently residing in Cherry Grove had a birthdate that ended in 69, and Jane was hellbent to find them.

"Cagney, our C.I. came through. Meet me on Ivy Walk in five. Over."

"Copy. Over and out."

Kaye was working her way down the boardwalk when Jane turned the corner at a jog. The retired NYPD captain waved and pantomimed drinking.

_Shit! _In her hurry Jane had forgot to grab a beer from the fridge.

"Sorry, Kaye, I forgot the beer. We'll stop for one at Cherry's after the interview."

"S'alright. I guess I can last a bit longer, but then I'm having a six-pack."

"Deal." Jane squeezed her shoulder. "We get through these two names and we'll relax on the beach with a case of Corona and watch our doctors frolic in the water. I hope Maura wears her green bikini; the top is way too small."

"Sounds great…um, the beer that is. I'll keep my eyes on my own doctor." Kaye blushed. "Who's gonna watch Volga while we're off duty?"

"Kojak." Jane replied.

"The fuck is that?"

"D'Fwan is our C.I. and the newest member of our squad."

"Ha! Faye and Maura wouldn't give up the names. I told you so."

"Maura wouldn't. I think Faye may have."

"That's my girl. She's getting mellow in her old age." Kaye laughed. "What's our plan of action? I suggest we go in friendly. Maybe pretend we're taking some kind of survey. You have a prize we can offer them?"

The two detectives strolled up the walk to a pleasant yellow bungalow with apricot colored shutters. Neat rows of yellow plastic flowers in green ceramic pots lined the walk. A sign next to the door read, 'Welcome to Paradise 40.6606° N, 73.0881° W'.

"Guess that's why the address is Paradise 40. In this place it could just as easily have been a bust measurement as longitude and latitude." Kaye snickered.

Jane knocked on the door and it was answered immediately. A tall, heavy-set black woman with a close-cropped afro and Nefertiti earrings greeted them with a smile.

"Two handsome butches on my doorstep. This town really is paradise. Thank you, Jesus!"

"Umm…" Jane stammered, flushing.

Kaye stepped forward. "I'm Kaye and this is Jane. We're doing a survey for our blog about lesbian culture in the 1980s. You look a little young for our demo. I bet you weren't even born then."

The woman laughed, revealing a mouthful of the most beautiful teeth Jane had ever seen, straight and snowy white against her dark red lipstick. "You are a charmer. I was a teenager in the eighties. Please come in. I'm Deirdre Moore, by the way."

_Bingo! _Jane quickly glanced at the prescription sheet in her sweaty palm. Deirdre was the first of the two names. They were lucky that she was at home and they didn't have to leave a message with a roommate or search her out on the beach or in the crowded bars, restaurants, and clubs on the island.

Deirdre held the door open and the detectives entered. "Have a seat. Can I offer you a beverage?"

Kaye was tempted to ask for a beer, but refrained; better to get this over with. Deirdre limped to the floral patterned sofa, leaning heavily on a cane. With a grim set of her jaw, she gingerly lowered herself down. Kaye and Jane sat in a pair of wicker chairs opposite her.

"I busted my hip and knee in May; car accident. Hurts like hell, but I'm looking on the bright side; I got the entire summer off to spend here in Paradise 40. Maybe I'll meet someone here and all the pain will be worth it. You two single?"

"No, sorry." The two detectives held up their left hands, Jane's adorned with her silver promise ring with the flush set diamonds, Kaye's with her plain gold wedding band.

"Damn!" Deirdre shook her head, attempting to look angry, but soon a dimple popped followed by her dazzling smile. "So…survey. Ask away. I'm an open book."

Jane pulled a notebook from her back pocket. "What was your favorite television show in the 1980s?"

Deirdre rested a manicured fingertip on her chin. "Hmmm. Is there a choice? The eighties were a long time ago. I liked Cosby, but that might be the '90s."

Kaye jumped into the conversation. "Other respondents have said…" She thought of the list that she and Jane had quickly come up with while strategizing on Ivy Walk. "Roseanne, Cagney and Lacey, Golden Girls, and Facts of Life."

Deirdre snapped her fingers. "Fact of Life! I loved that show. I had such a crush on Jo Polniaczek with her denim jacket and motorcycle. Mmm-mmm, she was the star of many of my teenage fantasies."

Jane leaned forward in her chair. "Did you know that people write fanfiction about the show? They make Jo and Blair a lesbian couple."

Deirdre smiled. "I'm not surprised; Jo would go for a girl like Blair. Unfortunately, I'm more of a Natalie with the skin tone of Tootie."

"What about the other shows?" Kaye asked. "Did you ever fantasize about Roseanne or one of the Golden Girls?"

"Roseanne was funny as shit, but she never rang my bell, if you know what I mean. The Golden Girls? Hell no."

Kaye held up her hand. "For an old broad like me, The Golden Girls are foxes. Would you rather see Dorothy with Rose or Blanche? Humor me."

Deirdre wrinkled her nose. "Flip a coin."

"Nope. You gotta answer." Kaye pressed.

Deirdre closed her eyes and sighed. "Blanche, I guess. Betty White is just…no."

"I think that's all we have." Jane rose from her seat.

Deirdre looked sad that their conversation was ending. "You sure you don't want a drink? I have a case of Sam Adam's Summer Ale chilling in the fridge."

Kaye almost caved, her mouth watering for an icy brew, but she held fast. "We'll let you know if you're a winner."

"A winner?" Deirdre looked confused.

"Yes." Jane added. "One random participant will win dinner for two at Top of the Bay."

Deirdre waved them off. "I'm a perpetual loser; at love and contests of all sorts. What would I do with dinner for two? It's just me. I suppose I could take myself or I on a date, but they're both bitches." She laughed, then grunted in pain as she lifted her heavy body from the sofa.

Jane felt ashamed scamming this friendly woman who was obviously not Rosothyluvr69. She made a mental note to stop by and invite the lonely woman to the next V.U.L.V.A. meeting. In fact, maybe she would mention the group today. She turned in the doorway, prepared to speak when her phone buzzed in her pocket and she pulled it out. A text from her mother filled the screen.

Janie, I'm running late. Don't want you pacing on the ferry dock worrying about me. I'll be there later with a BIG SURPRISE for you and Maura.

_Big surprise? _Jane groaned. It could be anything from a pair of matching tulle wedding gowns with hideous puffy sleeves to set of fuzzy nipple clamps for their honeymoon. Jane sighed and typed a quick reply.

I hate surprises and so does Maura; they make her vaso-vaginal.

Angela's response was immediate.

Tough shit.

"Everything okay, Jane?" Kaye asked.

"Umm, yes. My mother is running late."

"That's good. Now you can stop worrying that she's splattered across the Massachusetts Turnpike."

"Yeah, but she's bringing a surprise."

"That's never good." Deirdre commented as she let them out onto the porch.

Jane shot off a quick text to Maura, inviting her and Faye to meet them on the beach in half an hour. She mentioned how hungry and thirsty they both were, knowing her thoughtful future wife would arrived pulling a little red wagon filled with healthy snacks and more importantly iced cold beer. She mentioned Angela's delay, but not the surprise. She tucked the phone back into her pocket and turned to Kaye.

"Impressions?"

"Nice gal. Not our stalker. She's clearly not obsessed with the Golden Girls and she can barely walk across her living room. No way she's hiking through the dunes with a pair of binoculars and a sniping rifle."

"Agreed." Jane checked the second name and address. "Mercedes Morales on Lewis Walk. House is called _Poker in the Rear. _Weird name."

Kaye guffawed. "That's an old joke, Jane. I bet there are two apartments in that house and the other is called_ Liquor in the Front.__"_

Jane thought a moment. "I think you're right and I bet I know just what house it is." She took off in the direction of the Sunken Forest and the ramshackle cottage called _Hold Her Liquor_.

Peppermint Patty was sitting in a weathered Adirondack chair on the front porch, reading a magazine and absently scratching the head of a goat that stood chewing at her side. The second goat could be seen rooting in the sagebrush beyond the house. Patty looked up from her reading as Jane approached.

"Hey! You ready for more singing? Marcia just downloaded the lyrics to 'Turn, Turn, Turn.'"

Jane was ready for more singing, but this wasn't the time. She was a woman on a mission. "I know that song; my parents listened to the Byrds. I'll be ready at our next V.U.L.V.A. meeting. My friend…" She pointed to Kaye who was just rounding the corner, unable to keep up with Jane's younger and much longer legs. "and her wife are eager to join as well."

"Great!" Patty smiled.

"Is Mercedes around? She lives here, right?"

"Yeah, she rents the studio at back, _Poker in the Rear, _but she's probably down at the firehouse."

Kaye had caught up, but was breathing heavily. "You have another studio called _Liquor in the Front?__" _ She panted.

"Used to, but we turned it into our goat shed." Patty pointed to a sagging structure, half hidden behind a copse of shadbush.

"Clever names." Jane was already backing down the steps, eager to get to the firehouse.

"They are, but we didn't name them. They already had names when we bought this place. Marcia thought it would be bad luck to change them; like a ship. You never change a boat's name once you purchase it."

"Yeah?" Jane stopped. "I wish I'd known that. My pop bought an old dinghy when I was a kid. The thing's name was Lucretia, but that was my Nonna's name, and he didn't want to insult her. He painted over the r-e-t-i-a and added a k-y. The Lucky sank the same night in the marina before we had a chance to go out in her, which I guess is a good thing."

"She wasn't very lucky." Patty joked.

"Who's not lucky? You must be talking about me, 'cause I ain't had a date in like a hundred years." Mercedes appeared, strolling from the yard with her CGFD hat in her hand.

"Hey, I thought you were at the firehouse." Patty bumped her fist.

"Nah, going now. Hey, Jane."

Jane hadn't formulated a plan for interviewing this suspect. Clearly, pretending to conduct a random survey wouldn't work on a woman she had already met and who vaguely knew her history. She would have to wing it, use the instincts that had seldom failed her in two decades of police work.

"Hey, Mercedes. I was looking for you. Since we're both altos, I thought maybe we could run through a few songs together. This is my friend, Kaye. She's an alto, too."

"Cool." Mercedes extended her fist and Kaye bumped it.

Jane ran her fingers through her messy hair, buying time. "I was thinking about a medley of 1980s television theme songs. We probably know most of them by heart."

"Great idea, Jane." Patty pulled a pencil from her pocket and began to scribble on the back of her magazine. "'Movin' On Up' from the Jeffersons, 'Happy Days,'…what else?"

"Oh, 'Fact of Life.' That was my favorite." Mercedes began to croon. "You take the good, you take the bad, you take 'em both and there you have the facts of life…"

"Did you have a crush on Jo?" Jane asked when the other woman had finished the parts of the songs she could remember.

"Jo? Fuck no. I wanted to be Jo. Living with those three smart, sexy girls; working on my bike and doing all the butch things around the house that the ladies couldn't do. Damn, I wish someone woulda taken me out of the Bronx and sent me to a school like that."

"Yeah, me too." Jane agreed, picturing her teenage self as the working-class outsider at Maura's elite girls school. "That would have been hot."

"What about Golden Girls?" Kaye asked. "It has a good theme song and those girls are hot, too."

Jane began singing the Golden Girls theme. "Thank you for being a friend, traveled down the road and back again…"

Mercedes half hummed along, but clearly didn't know the words.

"Didn't you watch that show? It was one of my favorites." Jane prodded.

"I watched it some, but really it's not my thing; a bunch of old ladies living in a nursing home in…New Jersey or something."

"Florida." Jane corrected.

"Right. That's the old capital of the world. I guess I'll wind up there too, one day. Probably alone."

Kaye caught Jane's eye and gave a barely perceptible shake of her head. Mercedes was not their stalker. Jane nodded back in agreement.

"What's with the secret signals, you two? I've been playing softball my whole life and you've been nodding and winking and twitching at each other like a catcher telling the pitcher what to throw." Mercedes pulled herself up to her full five feet three inches and stared at Jane through narrowed dark eyes.

"Alright, you caught me. I was feeling you out because we just met a really cool single lady and I immediately thought you would be perfect for her. I remembered you saying you were single at the V.U.L.V.A. meeting. She's a big fan of 80s TV, especially Facts of Life."

Mercedes broke into a laugh, surprisingly girlish for such a tomboy. "For reals?"

"Yeah. I wouldn't shit you."

"Where's she at? She thick? I don't like no skinny girls, no offense."

"None taken." Jane assured her. "You're not my version of a dreamboat either."

"Touché." Mercedes held up her fist and Jane bumped it.

"Her name is Deirdre and she's not at all skinny. Tell you what, you can take her to dinner tonight at Top of the Bay, my treat."

Mercedes frowned. "Why your treat? I can treat a lady just fine. I'm not a brokester. I own my own bodyshop and gas station in Mount Vernon."

Jane was quick to soothe the feathers she had ruffled. "I'm just trying to share my luck. This week I proposed to the woman of my dreams and she said yes. I wish the same for you."

Mercedes nodded. "Okay then. I could use some luck."

"Meet her there at seven."

"I'm on call with the FD until eight, then I gotta shower and dress to look my sharpest."

"Nine?"

"Yeah. That's good." She hugged Jane awkwardly and briefly.

Jane and Kaye stepped from the porch, leaving Peppermint Patty still scribbling on her magazine. "I'll have Marcia download all these lyrics. Our next meeting is going to be awesome!"

"Yes it is and we'll have three new members; Kaye and her wife Faye and Mercedes's future wife, Deirdre."

"Espero que." Mercedes whispered.

Kaye wiped a rivulet of sweat from her hairline. "That beer better be coming soon. I'm just about out of steam. I remember the days when I'd work a double shift, chasing drug dealers up and down the stairways in the Louis Pink Houses for sixteen hours without giving it a second thought. Now I can barely waddle a couple of blocks without feeling like a sack of potatoes and dog shit."

"Give yourself a break, Kaye, you've been running around the island since ten this morning including an hour up and down the dunes. I'm beat, too. Just one quick stop and we'll both be on the beach, sipping an icy cold Corona."

"An icy Corona? More like a dozen icy Coronas."

"You got it, now what should we tell Deirdre?"

* * *

The beach was still crowded despite the waning sunlight of late afternoon. Couples canoodled and dozed under rainbow-colored sand umbrellas, available for rental at $25 from Volga and Olga. A young man, or perhaps it was a topless young woman, paddled a longboard through the rough waves hoping to ride one back to shore. Three women stood in the roiling surf casting fishing lines. A dozen lesbians in burgundy and yellow Brooklyn College tees knocked a volleyball back and forth over a net, stopping between points to sip from cans of Budweiser nestled in a chest of ice. A freckled redhead helped her son construct a moat around a lopsided sandcastle while her partner changed the diaper of a younger child in the shade of their umbrella. Next to the young family, an older gentlemen baked in the sun, his body brown and leathery, naked save for a thatch of white chest hair.

Maura surveyed the shorefront from under the brim of a floppy straw hat, an amused smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. These were her patients, her community, her people; she had a place here.

"Do you see our detectives?" Faye asked.

"No, but I'm certain they will find us."

Maura had brought with her the large white flag, emblazoned with a red cross that usually hung beside the front door of Belly Acres. With great difficulty she had managed to wedge the metal flagpole into the loose sand until it found purchase. Now it furled in the stiff ocean breeze, fixing her location for anyone in need of emergency medical care.

She sat again in her low slung sand chair and covered her legs with a towel. She had liberally applied 60 SPF sunscreen and it was late in the day, but she would not chance another painful sunburn.

"Faye, would you like a beverage?"

"Yes, please. Did you pack any coconut water? The natural electrolytes should replenish any I lose through diaphoresis."

"I'll take a beer, Maur. I don't have diarrhea." Jane and Kaye appeared behind them, having cut through the dunes.

"Diaphoresis is…"

"…a fancy name for sweat. I know, babe. You used that word last week when that jogger collapsed in the Fens." Jane tilted her head and licked her lips, raising her right index finger in an exaggerated impression of her future wife. "Dehydration due to excessive diaphoresis."

Maura swatted at her, but missed.

"Give me another six months of living together and I'd probably be able to pass the MCATs."

"Did the jogger die?" Kaye asked, wiping at her own slick neck with the back of her hand.

"No. He just keeled over in front of us. We gave him some Gatorade and called his wife to pick him up."

"He sent me a lovely thank you note with a Starbucks gift card inside." Maura added, digging through the cooler. She extracted three coconut waters and passed them around.

"This doesn't look like beer." Kaye lowered herself to the sand next to her wife.

"It doesn't taste like beer either. It tastes like jizz." Jane wrinkled her nose, earning her a sour look from her fianceé.

"What? It does. It's all salty and metallic and funky, like watered down sperm."

Kaye tried to give back her unopened can. "I think I'll pass on this."

"Drink it." Faye instructed her spouse and she did, grimacing and nearly retching until it was done.

Maura opened her own coconut water and took a small sip, rolling the liquid around her tongue before swallowing. "Semen contains many of the same electrolytes found in Gatorade and other sports drinks; zinc, calcium, potassium, and cobalamin without the added dyes and sugars…"

Jane dropped to the sand, pulling off her damp T-shirt and using it to wipe down her sweaty torso. Maura stared at the taut abdominal muscles rippling under Jane's simple black bikini top. She chewed on her lower lip, nearly losing her train of thought.

Jane grinned at her, fully aware of the effect her lean form had on her lover. "So we should just give up and go play for the other team? Suck down some weenie juice?"

"Oh gross!" Kaye tossed the empty can aside and opened the cooler. "I need a beer to wash that taste from my mouth. Unfortunately, nothing will ever wash the thought of weenie juice from my mind. Thanks, Jane."

"You're welcome." She lay back in the sand, tucking her rolled up tee under her head.

Kaye popped the cap from a bottle of Corona and drained half of it in one long pull. "Ahhhh."

"Jane, you want a beer?"

"Nah, I'll have another sperm shake."

"Ugh, really?"

"Fuck no. Gimme a beer."

Faye sat, sphinx like on her beach chair, her sightless eyes closed, enjoying the warmth of the sun on her face and the salty breeze ruffling her hair. Kaye sounded happier than she'd been in months, and it brought peace to her heart. She turned to her spouse. "I think I'll indulge in a beer as well."

Maura pulled two more beers from the ice chest. "I suppose I could manage to keep one down myself."

"Said the woman who paid $50 for a cup of coffee made from animal shit." Jane snorted.

"Kopi Luwak?" Faye asked. "I've read about it, but never tried it. Some say it's the smoothest and tastiest brew they've ever encountered."

"Is it really made from shit?" Kaye asked.

"It's made from beans that have been digested and excreted by palm civets in Indonesia. Enzymes in the animal's digestive tract ferment the coffee beans and change their flavor. It was a rich and complex flavored coffee, but not the best I've tasted."

Jane chucked. "Can you imagine drinking a beer that was lapped up and pissed out by some animal?"

"Hell no." Kaye laughed, finishing her bottle and digging for another.

"Maura and I packed some healthy snacks; carrot sticks, sugar snap peas, almonds, and sliced apples."

"Meh." Kaye grunted. "No chips?"

"Yes! Kale chips; Olga made them herself. She gave us some in a paper baggie when we left Island Breeze." Maura dug through her beach bag, pushing aside sunscreen and towels, zinc oxide and her paperback copy of _50 Shades of Gray_.

"I must have forgot to pack it." She sat back in her chair, pouting.

Jane patted her leg. "Don't worry, babe. Kaye and I will get over our disappointment."

"Sarcasm?" Maura brightened.

"Yes."

Maura smiled. "This has been a nearly perfect day." She took Jane's hand, rubbing gently at the rough scar tissue at the center of her palm.

Jane sighed, content to be petted and soothed under the warm sun, surrounded by friends. She allowed herself to forget Volga and her poison pen stalker, Angela and her irritating surprise, the dinner for Mercedes and Deirdre at Top of the Bay which would likely set her back $300 bucks, the city of Boston and all its inhabitants who seemed to kill each other at a steady rate of one per week. All that mattered was her hand in Maura's.

"Did D'Fwan's leads get you anywhere?" Maura asked quietly.

"What?" Jane sat up, her startled gaze meeting a pair of amused hazel eyes.

"I know he breached my patient records."

"How?"

"He left the computer on and you took notes on my prescription pad. You have a heavy hand, Jane, I could clearly read the indentations from your writing on the next page. Deirdre Moore and Mercedes Morales?"

Jane shook her head. "You'd make one hell of a detective, Doctor. Are you mad?"

"No. It was the moral thing to do, even if it was unethical. So…"

"They're not our stalkers, but they're perfect for each other. Kaye and I set them up on a date."

She glanced over at her friend who was sitting in the sand, her back resting against her wife's legs as Faye ran her hands through her damp hair, smoothing messy gray spikes. Kaye raised her beer and winked.

The beach began to empty as hundreds of day trippers, tired from hours of roasting on the sand began to pack up their blankets and chairs, umbrellas and picnic baskets, to head across the narrow island to the ferry.

The young couple with the two boys were burdened with diaper bags and toys in addition to their children and sundry beach gear. Jane watched lazily as one woman shifted both sleepy children onto her hips while her partner struggled with an umbrella, a cooler, two chairs and three beach bags. She was just about to get up and help when the naked gentleman rose, wrapped his towel around his waist and chivalrously offered his assistance. The redhead passed him a floral diaper bag which he hung over his shoulder and a dozing toddler whom he tenderly took in his arms. The trio headed toward the wooden stairway beyond the dunes. This was Fire Island at its best.

Maura shielded her eyes as she gazed westward toward the sun, still a bright ball of saffron hovering over the water. A lime green helicopter appeared from behind a bank of fluffy cumulus clouds, looking for a moment like the stem of a cotton plant. The thwack of its spinning rotors grew louder as the chopper approached then passed, flying low and torpid over the island, following the shore line.

"It's not a police bird." Kaye offered. "I thought for a minute it might be the Suffolk County PD, looking for our stalker."

The copter turned in a tight arc and headed back west, even slower than before, its blades clearly defined as they spun.

"I think it's looking for a clear spot to land." Maura stood up, reaching for her red cross flag. "Could it be a medical transport? No one notified me."

"Relax, babe, look at the sign."

"NYC Executive Heli-Charter" was painted in elegant black script along the chopper's flank. "It's just some pretentious douche who thinks he's too good for the ferry."

The women watched as the large copter hovered in place near the waterline, 100 yards to the east. A loud speaker crackled and a male voice, probably the pilot, asked the handful of people near the craft to step back. When they obliged, the green chopper came to rest in the wet sand as gently and easily as a rose petal falling to earth. The thwacking sound slowed and stopped as the pilot cut the engine and the broad propellers spun lazily before they too came to a stop. The pilot jumped from the craft and slid open a door, busying himself with suitcases and boxes.

Kaye described the scene to her spouse, who nodded absently, more interested in the scent of the sea and the last bit of sun warming the side of her face.

"Who do you think it is?" Kaye asked.

"One of my patients said that Paul Anka frequents the island, and Elton John has been known to show up here unannounced."

Jane sat up. She loved Elton John. It would be totally uncool to rush the celebrity and ask for a lame autograph, but she'd definitely snap a selfie in front of the singer to text to Frost.

Look at me, hanging with rock stars.

She had already composed the text in her head and was reaching for her phone when the pilot extended his hand into the passenger compartment. A white arm appeared followed by the slender form of a dark-haired woman. Constance Isles stepped from the helicopter and stood regally on the beach, smoothing her dove-gray pencil skirt.

Maura made a noise midway between a gasp and a groan. She dropped her flag and sank into her beach chair, both hands covering her astonished eyes.

A moment later, Angela Rizzoli leaped from the craft in a lavender terrycloth track suit. She looked around the beach, a happy smile on her face, waving to the hundreds of people who sat staring at the green craft and its passengers. Everyone waved back which made her smile even brighter.

Angela caught sight of her tall daughter, standing alone with her phone in her hand. She threw her arms up into the air.

"Surprise!" She shouted.

* * *

**A/N: So the mothers are in place; let the awkward wedding planning begin.**


End file.
